RANGELY — The Rangely Panther wrestling team traveled to Granby last Friday to compete in a 24-team tournament.
There were teams from the Denver area as well as teams from Wyoming. Rangely, Hayden and Soroco were the only small schools at the event.
The Panthers placed eighth as a team. Wrestling for the Panthers were Chad Petersen at 103 who went 0-2; at 112 Chance Peters went 0-2; at 119 Blake Wanstedt went 2-2; at 125 Devon Rose went 4-0.
Rose won a very exciting overtime match in the finals. At 135, Cole Barlow went 2-2; Brandon Gray wrestled two matches on the day and went 2-0; at 140 Travis Witherell went 3-1 and took home second place.
Zakk Wenzel wrestled two matches and went 2-0. At 145 Logan Osborne went 3-2 and was one match from the medal round; at 152 Christian Holcomb went 3-1. Holcomb also took second place.
At 160 Keane Raley went 3-2 and was one match away from placing; at 171 Ralph Carabajal went 2-2; as did Mike Dillon at 189.
Bo Armstrong went 0-2 on the day; at 215 Patrick Brown went 0-2; as did Kindal Cushman at heavyweight.
All in all I thought we wrestled well for the first time out. We had some horrible first round draws, but that’s how it goes. This week the Panthers will be busy. We travel to Grand Valley today for a dual, and wrestling starts at 5 p.m. Friday we wrestle in Roosevelt, Utah, for a dual team tournament, and wrestling starts at 1 p.m. On Saturday we will be competing in the Mesa State duals, and wrestling begins at 9 a.m.