Hosting their first home meet in about three years, the Lincoln County wrestling team took second place behind Laughlin in the Division III Southern League championships last Saturday at Panaca.
Laughlin was trailing the Lynx by eight points late in the meet. But Colyhn Kruse and Acy Allen won the final two matches of the day to give the Cougars the title.
Laughlin edged Lincoln 184½ points to 180½. Pahranagat Valley was third with 144, and Spring Mountain took fourth with 143.
Kruse took the 220-pound championship by pinning Agassi Prep’s Robert Blake in 2 minutes, 13 seconds, and Allen pinned Tonopah’s Kyle Dennis in just 36 seconds in the 285-pound championship match. .
Zach Rowe (113), Will Culverwell (145) and Jesse McLean (160) won titles for Lincoln County.
However, Lincoln suffered a major loss when Derek Mathews (126) suffered a severe dislocated elbow in the championship match and had to default to Joseph Pauley of White Pine. Later X-rays also showed some bone fragments in the elbow, which will require attention from an orthopedic specialist.
Lincoln coach Steve Culverwell said Mathews was the 2014 state champion as a sophomore at 113 pounds, but moved up this year to 126, “and of all my wrestlers, I had the most confidence of him as repeating as state champion.”
Pahranagat Valley had three men as individual champions: Salvador Heredia (106), Austin Horrocks (182) and Mateo Linares (195).
The top four finishers in each weight class advance to next week’s state tournament in Winnemucca.
Others who qualified for state from Lincoln were Wade Stever, third place (132), Jesse Mathews, second place (138), Frank Barrett, third place (152), and Nick Thomas, second place (182).
Culverwell said he thinks the Lynx can place “five or six men somewhere at state.”
Also qualifying from Pahranagat Valley were Oscar Heredia, second place (113), Danny Heredia, third place (126), Caleb Hansen, third place (170), Bailey Peck, fourth place (170), and Tyler Horrocks, fourth place (285).
