Dogies host home tournament

Newcastle High School wrestlers hosted their annual Dogie Invite on Friday, where they finished seventh out of 11 teams, but ahead of Torrington and Douglas, who were the only other 3A teams competing. Contributing to the team score were four Dogies who placed in the top five of the tournament, and head coach Teigen Marchant was very pleased with the entire team’s performance, especially given their size disadvantage.

“We were pretty small regarding numbers,” Marchant said. “I was really happy with how we finished against those 3A teams, and we also did a lot of learning throughout the day.”

Senior Scott Larson went undefeated in front of the Newcastle fans where he stood atop the podium in the 144-pound weight class. He made quick work of Natrona, Thunder Basin and two Sturgis opponents on his way to number one, and his longest match was only 1:33.

“Scott has really made some improvements over the last couple of weeks,” Marchant said. “He is one of my big leaders and he is really showing up to compete.”

Noah Williams-Gardner (175) wrestled his best competition of the year by finishing in second place.

“I was just dumbfounded by Noah,” Marchant said. “He brought so much confidence into his matches, which was what he really needed, and he just did really well — especially for being only a second-year wrestler.”

In the semi-finals, Williams-Gardner battled it out against a Sheridan opponent to edge him out with a 16-15 victory.

“I was struggling a lot with mentally preparing myself, but I won my first match and everything just connected for me,” Williams-Gardner said. “After that, I had so much confidence and I was able to just keep going.”

Troy Christensen finished fourth in the 120-pound weight class, making it to the semi-finals of the championship round before falling to a Thunder Basin opponent. The Bolts prevailed again in the third place match.

Gustavo Munoz (175) was the final Dogie to earn hardware, with his fifth-place finish. After falling in the quarter-finals, he fought his way to the consolation semi-finals where he ran into the same Sheridan wrestler that Williams-Gardner defeated. Unfortunately, Munoz was unable to defeat him, however, he rebounded to get the better of Natrona in the fifth-place match, winning by major decision.

TJ Harrington (132), Dane Crabtree (165), Damien Ankeney (215) and Jonathan Bainer (285) made it to the bloodround — the last round before placing — before they were knocked out of the tournament.

This week is a busy one for the Dogies as they traveled to Wheatland on Tuesday for a quad, will wrestle at a quad in Wright on Thursday, then will go to Belle Fourche for an invitational tournament on Friday and Saturday.

“This week will be kind of a stress test for us to see where we’re at,” Marchant said. “I think we’re ready for it as far as technique and conditioning go, but mentally we have a little more work to do before regionals.”