Eight wrestlers advance

Chris Jones of Colfax gets top position on Reardan's Caleb Cole in the 138-pound title match. Cole, one of the top-rated wrestlers for all classifications, took the win by decision. Both wrestlers will compete at east side regionals in Colbert Saturday. For more pictures, see Weekly Pages: Feb. 9.

Seven Colfax wrestlers and Travis Knauff of Garfield/Palouse will travel to Northwest Christian at Colbert Saturday to compete in the east side regional round for state qualification. The eight local entrants qualified out of the south side district meet at Colfax last Saturday.

Top four qualifiers from the south side will mix it up with the top four from the north side for four tickets assigned to the east side region for the Mat Classic in Tacoma Feb. 17-18.

The north side entrants at Colbert will include teams from the north half of the NE 2B and the 1B schools.

Saturday's meet at Colfax brought 51 wrestlers from six teams in search of the regional tickets. Reardan's power team, which brought more than a third of all the competitors to Colfax, took eight of the 14 titles and five of the second-place tickets.

Reardan totaled 298.5 teams points for a big win, and Colfax placed second with 105 points.

Colfax coach Denis Gransbery expects Reardan to make a strong showing at the Saturday regionals round at Northwest Christian.

Lone Colfax winner was Nolan Burrill, who waited all day for one match in the 106 class and scored a pin in the last 30 seconds.

Garrett Phillips at 113, Chris Jones at 138, Knauff at 145 and Dane Hall at 152 all placed second. They were all stopped by Reardan wrestlers in the championship round.

The other two Colfax qualifiers were Augie Allenbach and John Nelson, both entrants in the 220 class. They wound up facing off in the consolation final after being sidetracked earlier in the day.

Coach Gransbery noted Jones collided with Reardan's Caleb Cole who is ranked among the top grapplers for all state divisions of the 138 class.

Hall went up against Justice Anderson, also a veteran state competitor for the Indians.

Burrill and Phillips, who are in weight classes with short entry lists, stand a good chance of tagging a state ticket Saturday.

Wrestlers in the middle weight will have to battle through the bouts to land one of the state tickets.

Team scores: Reardan 297.5, Colfax 105, Liberty 94.5, Waitsburg 86.5, Pomeroy 41, Lind/Ritzville/Sprague 32 and Garfield/Palouse 18.

106-Burrill bye, bye, pinned Cory Perrynan-Reardan 5:31 for first place.

113-Phillips bye, pinned Jason Haas-Liberty 1:44, pinned by Ethan Hull-Reardan 1:40 for second place.

138-Jones bye, pinned Nathan Kieffer-Reardan 4:30, to Cole-Reardan on decision for second place.

138-Barney bye, pinned by David Just-Waitsburg 1:00, pinned by Dylan Lane-LRS 2:25 for sixth place.

145-Knauff (GP) bye, pinned Connor Houlihan-Reardan 2:15, to Thomas Perryman-Reardan on decision for second place.

145-Ben Ahmann pinned Alex Whitman-LRS 1:24, pinned by Perryman 3:16, pinned Russell Baump-Liberty :30, pinned by Houlihan 2:04 for fourth place.

152-Hall bye, over Garrett Spurell-Liberty, to Justice Anderson of Reardan on decision for second place.

220-Allenbach bye, to Jimmy Merriot-Reardan on decision, bye, pinned Nelson-Colfax :53 for third place.

220-Nelson bye, pinned by Jake Herrington-Liberty :57, pinned by Allenbach for fourth.