Dogies/Bobcats show up and show out

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Editor
 
Newcastle/Upton was host for the 3A East Regional Tournament on Friday, and head coach Lee McCoy’s squad showed up and showed out for their hometown fans.
The squad qualified 10 for the state tournament with six earning seeding for that event. As a team, the Dogies finished fourth, bypassing Wheatland by 1 point with Josh Womack’s victory in the championship match at 220 pounds. 
“If it comes down to a situation like that, you want Josh to be your guy,” McCoy said. “And overall, we had a really good regionals where a lot of things came together at the right time, so I was pretty happy.”
McCoy has said all season that he wanted his kids to be peaking during the post-season and that’s the way it looked on Friday. 
Haven Vrana (106-pound weight class), Jackson East (120), Cael Holmes (126), Aidan Coberly (152), Jacob Prell (160) and Josh Womack (220) all finished in the top four, which means they will go into the tournament with a seed, giving them an advantage. 
“Everyone was wrestling to win matches and we beat a lot of people that we weren’t supposed to beat on paper,” McCoy said. “The biggest match of the day was Josh beating the No. 1-ranked Garrett Parker from Rawlins in the championship match.”
Womack went into the tournament ranked third in the state at 220, and to get to the championship match he had to get past two other opponents, including the No. 4-ranked Carter Archuleta of Douglas in the semifinals. The two had seen each other twice through the season and had split with Archuleta taking a 9-8 decision over Womack, then Womack getting the pin in their second match-up.
“He gave us a little bit of a scare. He was trying to go upper body with Josh which isn’t where Josh is super comfortable,” McCoy admitted. “Josh was able to turn things around and started dominating, and once that happened it was over.” 
Womack then ended up winning a pretty evenly matched championship contest by a score of 2-1 over Parker. Womack had him down for the first two quarters then Parker had control in the third. However, the points ended up in Womack’s favor. 
“Rankings really don’t mean a lot to me, but Parker is really good and Josh had to wrestle smart and be patient,” McCoy said. “He did and he won, and now he has a great route to the finals next weekend. All the other kids will be on the other side of the bracket battling it out.” 
East also wrestled his way into the championship round. He did so by pinning a Douglas opponent in the quarterfinals in 2:52, then quickly dropped a Rawlins opponent in just 45 seconds in the semi-finals. 
“Jackson took the Douglas kid down and rode him like a rented mule and then turned him for the pin,” McCoy said, chuckling. “Then he was jacked up and wanted the match against the talented Rawlins kid so he went out, double-legged him, put him on his back and pinned him before the kid even really knew what was happening.”
East ran into another opponent from Rawlins in the finals where he got a little overpowered on the bottom
and gave up the pin. However, his second-place finish will bode well for him in seeding at the state tournament this weekend.
Vrana dropped his quarterfinal match, however he made up ground in the consolation semis to work
his way into the third- and fourth-place matches. 
“Haven was up against the Wheatland kid who has beaten him all year. He went out and double-legged him, put him on his back and stuck him in under a minute,” McCoy said, smiling. “It really spoke to the intensity our kids were bringing to the mat. They weren’t content with kids who had beat them all year, or who were supposed to beat them, take the win. We were going to have the last word.”
In the third place match, Vrana had a re-match against the Buffalo opponent who had bested him by pin in the quarterfinals, and though he lost again, this time it was by technical fall rather than by pin. 
Holmes (126) breezed through his first round and quarter-final matches, pinning his opponents in the first period. However, in the semi-finals he ran into the fourth-ranked Zach Covolo of Rawlins and he ended up dropping that in the first period.  
“I was really pleased with how
Cael performed this weekend,” McCoy began. “He is in a really tough weight class and has been fighting to overcome an early season injury all year, but he came out and wrestled really tough.”
Holmes bounced back from the loss to pin his Wheatland opponent
in 2:08 in the consolation semis
which advanced him to the third- and fourth-place match where he was up against another really tough competitor from Burns. 
“He dropped a decision to take fourth, but it was a great effort from him to bounce back from the season he’s had,” McCoy said. “To end up fourth and get a seed at state is huge for him.”
Another notable match of the tournament was Coberly’s match for third and fourth at 152. His journey began with a 10-3 loss against Ezra Archuleta from Rawlins in the quarter-finals, then he came back through and had to beat Jayden Archuleta from Douglas in the consolation semi-finals where he won 1-0, which set up a re-match with Archuleta from Rawlins in the third- and fourth-place match. There Coberly took his revenge and won the 8-3 decision to take third place.
“Aidan wanted it more than he did and it was apparent as the match went on. They were neck and neck but Aidan just kept grinding away at him and the kid got frustrated and took some bad shots,” McCoy explained. “Aidan took him down a couple of times and won a good decision against a really good kid.” 
Prell pinned his Rawlins opponent in round one of the tournament then beat a Worland opponent with a gutsy 5-4 win in the quarter-finals. Unfortunately he was pinned by Burns/Pine Bluffs in the semi-finals but then came back to win over Douglas in the consolation semis to advance to the third- and fourth-place round. 
“Jacob had an outstanding tournament,” McCoy said. “He ended up against Hazen Camino from Buffalo who is ranked fifth at 160, and just lost a razor-close decision 3-4, but I think if they wrestled that match 10 more times, he would win it.”
The remaining four Dogies who placed at regionals will compete at the state tournament this weekend, but will do so without the benefit of being seeded. 
Kyah Miller pinned two of her four opponents on her way to earning a state tournament berth with her eighth-place finish at 113. Cullen Davis also went 2-2 at 138 to finish seventh, Walker Simianer finished seventh as well at 145 finishing the day at 2-2, and Heath Henkle wrapped up fifth place at 220 despite going 0-2 on the day. 
“Kyah could have easily been in the top four, but she dropped her first match. She was taking it to her Wheatland opponent, but then got stuck in a bad position and got pinned,” McCoy said. “She came back and won her next two matches, and though she lost in the consolation semis, she had a good showing.” 
“It was nice to see our kids do so well, and I know part of it was having home court advantage,” McCoy said. “The home crowd showed up and I was glad, especially for our seniors, to get to wrestle in that environment one more time. Hopefully we can carry this momentum into this week and bring home some hardware from the state tournament.” 
The 3A State Tournament is Friday and Saturday at the Wyoming Ford Center in Casper. It kicks off at 9 a.m. on Friday morning with all three classes competing at the same time.