Shorthanded due to nagging injuries in some weight classes that forced coach Mike Crebbin to tweak the lineup, the Oak Harbor High School wrestling team had a good outing against visiting Stanwood Wednesday evening.
Stanwood always puts a strong WesCo North team on the mat and despite recording three pins and a win by technical fall, the Spartans were hard pressed from the opening bout in their 36-23 victory over the Wildcats.
Trailing 3-0 on the scoreboard, junior Jake Lundstrom got things going for Oak Harbor scoring a major decision victory, 14-5, over Tyler Ross in the 189-pound bout to give the Wildcats a 4-3 lead.
“I think what really helped me is the conditioning our coach puts us through every day,” Lundstrom said. “I was just out there for the fight to win. I didn’t want to lose at all.”
Alter dropping the next two bouts via pinfall, Cory Trimbur got the Wildcats back on track winning at 103 pounds, defeating Stanwood’s Brittani Gilfeather via pinfall at the 5:03 mark. Gilfeather, a senior, is the only female wrestling on the Stanwood varsity team.
Sophomore Connar Zimmerman earned the next Oak Harbor victory, scoring a major decision over Richard Bascom at 125 pounds.
“I wrestled him early last year and lost 4-3,” Zimmerman said. “I was just better than he was today.”
Senior captains Ben Page (140), John Tuttle (145) were winners by decision in bouts against Matt Pelham and Ben Ulrich, and Jared Tyson scored Oak Harbor’s final victory of the match with a hard-fought 5-3 win over Joe Eidsness at 152 pounds.
Crebbin said there were a couple of pivotal weight classes in the match.
“We moved Kyle Magana up from 160 to 171 pounds,” Crebbin said. “He did well, even though he gave up a little bit of weight.”
Cribbin said another pivotal weight class was the bout at 119 pounds that Royce Cardwell wrestled in.
“As far as matches go, our strength against their strength, the team did a good job,” Crebbin said. “Sometimes you just have to match ‘em up and send them out there. There’s still room for improvement .”
