All eight Pahranagat Valley wrestlers will compete in the 2A Southern Regionals today and on Saturday at Laughlin High School.
Last week at White Pine High School in Ely, six of the wrestlers earned a No. 1 seed in the 2A Southern Duals involving Lincoln County, Round Mountain, Tonopah, West Wendover, and White Pine.
Chris Thornton (182), Reece Thornton (195), Salvador Heredia (113), Garrett Bowen (160), Tayt Leavitt (220), and Jon Stewart (285) earned the top positions.
Bowen and Leavitt tied for No. 1 in their respective weights, so a coin toss was used as the tiebreaker. Leavitt came out as the No. 2, dropping Bowen to No. 3.
The Southern league will now meet up with schools from the Central 2A region, Indian Springs, Beaver Dam, Lake Mead Christian, Laughlin, and Spring Mountain.
The top four finishers at Laughlin in each weight category will advance to the state wrestling tournament on Feb. 9 at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas.
Panther coach Brad Loveday commented that even though Pahranagat does not have wrestlers in the middle weights, those who did wrestle fared quite well. “We won three duals and lost one, to end up the second-place team in the division.”
He noted that Pahranagat won their first dual with White Pine, 42-24. “We lost the second dual to Tonopah, 36-42,” Loveday said. “We won all the matches we were in, except one. However, because of having to give up forfeits in weight classes where we don’t have anyone, Tonopah was able to get the points needed for the win. Then we won the next two duals over Lincoln County, 42-12, and West Wendover, 42-24.”
Lincoln County’s Ben Culverwell (120) is the No. 1 seed, with teammate Jordan Free (120) as No. 3. Pahranagat freshman Hagen Harris (106) is the No. 2 seed. Freshman Jonathan Dillingham (170) was also in a three-way coin toss and placed second.
Others from Lincoln County going to regionals include Kyle Zierow (152), Aiden Miller (106), Travis Perkins (170), and Glaven Plasden (182).
At the start of the season, Loveday said that he expected Pahranagat’s team was going to be a good one, “and we are right now. We have to give up some forfeits in the middle weights because we just don’t have anybody there. But I think we can qualify maybe all our wrestlers for the state meet.”
