Sports Year In Review 2018
Four Dogies make state wrestling finals but freshman Kale Corley claims only title
Kale Corley began a run for Dogie history by becoming only the second freshman from NHS to take home a state title in wrestling. Becoming the state champion in his first year of varsity competition in February opens up the possibility for Corley to become the first ever four-time state champion in school history.
“I don’t know if what I have done has completely set in yet,” Corley smiled. “My main goal has been to be the first Dogie to become a four-time state champion, and I have the chance to do it now.”
After finishing third at the Regional Tournament the week before, Corley (120 lbs.) was on a mission heading into State. On his side of the bracket was the same wrestler from Wheatland who had knocked him out of the running for a Regional championship, but both Corley and head coach Lee McCoy were looking forward to a rematch. As it turned out, the rematch never took place due to the fact that the kid was injured during the first round, so was unable to compete for the rest of the tournament.
“I know Kale would have beat him anyway, and he was looking forward to wrestling him again,” he began. “Kale was on fire. It’s been his goal all season to be state champ, and once the Wheatland kid was out that pumped him up even more.”
The road to the state title began on Friday with Corley making quick work of his first round opponent, pinning him in 50 seconds. His quarterfinals round was a bit more of a challenge, but he managed to get the best of the Star Valley wrestler with a 4-3 decision which moved him on to the semifinal round, where once again he dominated with a pin in just 26 seconds.
Corley then had to wait all day Saturday for his shot at the title against Alan Bankert of Worland.
“We hadn’t seen Bankert before, but we knew a little bit about him,” McCoy began. “He had recently moved to Worland from Montana where he had been a state finalist. He was good, but he wasn’t ready for Kale.”
Corley stated that he felt confident heading into the final match and it showed as he took to the mat, wrestled his match and got the pin with 46 seconds remaining in the third period.
“It was pretty cool,” Corley grinned. “The atmosphere at the tournament is just amazing, and it was a lot of fun to be in that situation. I only wish that Wyatt [Corley] and the other seniors could have been up there with me, but they finished hard and are happy because they knew they had given it their all.”
When the smoke cleared at the tournament, the Dogies had racked up enough points to finish eighth out of 16 teams despite taking only eight wrestlers to the tourney. The impressive team performance was a result of an outstanding two days of wrestling by seniors Trayton Dawson (113), Alan Baker (145), Wyatt Corley (152) and Teigen Marchant (182), as well as freshman Kale Corley (120), who all advanced to the semifinals. Dawson, Marchant and the Corley brothers went on to win their way into the state championship round, but Kale was the only one to claim victory in the finals.
“We had an outstanding tournament,” McCoy declared. “I think only Star Valley had more kids in the finals than we did, so we can’t be disappointed about that.”
Dawson churned his way through to the finals round by pinning his first two opponents and defeating the third by technical fall. However, in the championship round, he had his work cut out for him going up against a tough Star Valley adversary who ended up getting the best of him in a 6-3 decision.
Wyatt Corley made quick work of his opponents in the first and quarterfinal rounds, but when he got to the finals, he ran into a pretty strong wrestler from Star Valley. After a glitch in the scoring, which resulted in about a five minute delay, Corley went on to win the match by a 10-6 decision.
After dominating the 152 weight class all season, Corley missed out on the brass ring as he was pinned by a strong Powell opponent in the finals.
Marchant began the state tournament strong, pinning his way through to the semifinal round on Friday evening. In a 9-5 decision, he advanced on to the finals after defeating a Thermopolis foe, and it was two pretty evenly matched wrestlers who took the mat for the championship match on Saturday, but Marchant lost on a late takedown.
Baker was knocked out of the championships with his semifinal loss to Luke Goncalves of Buffalo by a 7-12 decision. He then went on to defeat a Torrington opponent by decision in the consolation semifinals in order to set up his third place match against Ben Elmlinger of Buffalo, whom Baker had defeated in the Regional Championship the week before. It was a tough match with Elmlinger able to exact vengeance against Baker by taking the 8-5 win.
Hoops team returns
to State
It’s been since 2013 that the Newcastle men’s team has advanced their season to the State Tournament, but the number one seeded East Quadrant Dogies did just that with a loser-out win against the Trailblazers of Torrington on the final day of the 3A East Regional Tournament in March.
The journey to state qualification began when the Dogies opened up 3A East Regional Tournament play against the Thermopolis Bobcats. Having played – and defeated – them just five days prior in the final regular season matchup, head coach Allen Von Eye’s crew went into it with that game fresh on their minds.
Though the crew had dominated the Bobcats in Thermopolis, the Dogies started off a little slow against the fourth seeded Bobcats, going into the locker room only up 10 at the half.
The Dogies took the mid-game break to refocus and came out firing on all cylinders as play resumed, going on an 18-5 run to seemingly put the game out of reach. The Dogies would go on to take home the 65-50 win.
The first round win advanced the Dogies to a semi-final matchup against the Rawlins Outlaws on Friday evening. The Outlaws earned their way into the contest with a big win over the host Douglas Bearcats on Thursday.
The teams battled in the first half with Rawlins going into the locker room with a five point lead, but the Dogies struggled to score in the second half while Rawlins did not. The end result was a 50-65 loss for Newcastle and the knowledge that there would be no Regional championship run.
“We tried to make sure we didn’t dwell on the loss afterward. Of course our goal had been to make it to the championship game, and we knew that wasn’t going to happen,” Von Eye sighed. “I gave the guys 30 minutes to think about it and use it. I didn’t care if they spent the 30 minutes pouting about it, but after that we were done and focusing on the next game. All of our main goals were still intact, and we needed to stay together and work toward that goal.”
You have to win two before you lose two if you want to go to State, so the Dogies had their season on the line as they faced off against the Torrington Trailblazers. The Dogies held a one point lead at the end of the first quarter, and went into the half up two. When they took the court to resume play, their determination was evident as they imposed their will over Torrington for the remaining 16 minutes of play, and punched their ticket to the state tournament with a 64-48 victory.
With only one game to rest, the Dogies faced off against the Warriors of Worland in the third/fourth place game to end the tournament. The Warriors won the first quarter, leading 18-13, but then the Dogies came roaring back in the second to take a 30-28 lead going into the half. Worland took the lead back at the end of the third 40-36, but Newcastle answered back when it counted and won the fourth quarter – and the game – 53-50.
Sophomore is state runner-up — twice!
With only two individual qualifiers and three relay teams, the Lady Dogies headed to the 3A State Swim Meet in Laramie in October hoping to bring home some hardware regardless of their diminished numbers, and thanks to a strong swimming sophomore they did just that.
Hannah Gross, the team’s top swimmer, had qualified in every individual event during the regular season, so had a decision to make regarding which two she would compete in for a state title. The 100 Freestyle and the 100 Backstroke were Gross’ top choices, and she was heading into each event with the number one seed as the State Meet got underway.
In the preliminary race of the 100 Free, Gross out-touched the second place finisher from Riverton by .08 of a second, and in the 100 Backstroke she claimed second place. Both finishes guaranteed her good heat and lane positions in the finals on Saturday.
In the finals of the 100 Free, Gross was leading by .2 of a second at the 50 yard mark, but the Riverton swimmer she had defeated in prelims was able to pour it on in the second half of the race to steal the state title in the end.
Going into the finals of the 100 Backstroke, Gross knew she had time to make up given the way the race had ended on Friday. However, fatigue was setting in and making the task a bit more daunting.
“Hannah was up against the defending state champ from Lander in the 100 Backstroke,” head coach Doug Scribner said afterward. “She started the race a little tired, finishing the first 50 in about the fourth position. She had a great second half though, and ended up touching the wall in second place.”
With both individual events completed, the sophomore finished the year as the state runner-up in each race.
Lady Dogie soccer takes down
second-ranked
Lady Cats
The Douglas Lady Bearcats came to town last spring boasting a number two ranking in the state and eight wins on the season, including one against the Lady Dogies in the first weekend of play. But coach Bryce Hoffman’s squad appeared to be unaffected by the hype surrounding their opponent, and simply got down to the business of evening the score.
Four minutes into the game, freshman Caitlyn Pehringer received a nice through-ball from Alaina Laurence (also a freshman), and was able to attack and finish out a left-footed goal to go up 1-0.
A freshman bench player was the next Lady Dogie to score for the team in the 13th minute of the first half. Lara Lopez came into the ball game and within 30 seconds was in the books with a goal to give her team a 2-0 lead. According to Hoffman, the play was created mostly by Tayler Ford, who dribbled her way past the defense and took a shot on goal. The shot rebounded off the keeper and Lopez was able to finish the play on the back side with a left-footed boot.
“We had two freshmen, right-footed players score for us on left-footed shots, so that’s pretty cool,” Hoffman grinned.
Douglas seemed to be a little stunned at the Lady Dogies’ fierce offensive attack and tenacious defense. However, after their second goal Newcastle slipped into a bit of a lull, which allowed the Bearcats a respite. As such, the first half ended with the home team still enjoying the 2-0 advantage.
Douglas came out of the break seemingly on a mission to get into the game, and for the first five minutes put some heavy pressure on the Dogie defense. However, the back line continued to diligently thwart any attempted attack by the Lady Cats.
The third and final goal of the contest went to the Lady Dogies in the 64th minute of play. This time it was Ford who sent the ball past the Bearcat keeper on a shot from about 18 yards out.
“This was a great win for us,” Hoffman smiled. “I don’t know if we’ve ever beat a number two ranked team, and that we did it starting nine freshmen and sophomores and only two seniors makes it even better. Those younger kids stepped up and those seniors did a great job of leading them. It was great to see such a young group go out and just be fearless and play.”
Bike club holds
first race
The Bent Sprockets’ inaugural bike race took place on Sept. 9. The 23-mile ride was for riders ages 16 and older, and there was also an 11-mile race the same day for children ages 13, 14 and 15.
The route went north on (U.S.) Highway 85, turned on Salt Creek Road, then headed south before taking a left on Beaver Creek cutoff, which led to Beaver Creek and eventually Highway 16, which took riders back to the Fountain Inn.
The kids participating in the shorter race will be taking the scenic overlook north on U.S. Highway 85 and will be supervised by members of the Bent Sprockets. Signage and traffic control will be in place for both the 23- and 11-mile races.
After the race, the Fountain Inn hosted a free spaghetti feed for all who participated in the race, and also offered discounted rooms at their hotel for those traveling to participate in the race.
Members of the club — including Sandoval, Jessica Bettorf, Denise Bradshaw, Ed Beason, Jeremy Dedic and Tom Voss — helped host the event and keep it as safe as possible, with safety already accounted for in the race trail.
“We’re not crossing any roads, any highways; we’re not going to worry about safety in that aspect,” Sandoval said before the race.
Dedic said that although 23 miles may seem like a lot to people who don’t ride bikes often, that distance is a moderate amount for experienced riders, who were able to tackle the route without much struggle.
“The whole idea is to promote Newcastle,” Voss said. “Things for the people who live here to do, and things to draw people in. We have two ideas that are going to come to fruition in the next two years, that I think are going to become national races. One of them is what we call the fast five, and we will use the Flying V trail. The other one is the Bent Sprockets 50/50, the 23-mile race, that I think is going to get a lot of attention. We are also going to be putting together a Bent Sprockets triathlon.”
Though races are the main focus right now, club members are not stopping there. On July 21, Sandoval coordinated a family bike ride on Salt Creek Road, with the intention of continuing to do similar events around town whenever possible.