-
Photo provided by Watonga Public Schools
Watonga boys wrestling has been mighty busy in recent days.
It held a homecoming dual meet Jan. 10 with Woodward, but came up short with a final of 3936 in Woodward’s favor.
Then it was on to a home dual against Elk City on Jan. 12. That, too, was a check in the L column 36-42 but a W in the learning curve category. But when the state rankings came out there were a lot of Eagle grapplers on the list. Ayden Perez, a freshman, was ninth in the 144-weight class, and Ernesto Duenez was fourth in the 190 weight class.
Kale Smith was fifth in the 215-weight class.
The next day, Jan. 13, the wrestlers headed to the western conference for a two-day meet in Kingfisher. The first day ended with Watonga sitting in fifth place, and three middle school wrestlers going to the semifinals, while five high school wrestlers were also headed to the semifinals.
The tournament ended with Watonga High School in fourth place and the junior high wrestlers in seventh place. Individually, it was a very good meet for Brayson Gordon, Perez and Tristan Dobbins, who each won his weight class at the junior high level.
The high school students also had good individual results, with Dayson Cash winning the championship at the 165 pound weight class, Dakota Cox and Duenez in second place in their respective weight categories, and Chris Garcia and Kale Smith placing fourth in their weigh classes.
Up next is a multi-team meet Jan. 19 where Watonga will face off against Bridge Creek, Cordell, Crossings Christian, Geary, Heritage Hall and Hinton. This is a home meet that will begin at 11 a.m. at the gym in Watonga.