BY JIM THOMAS

Three key Southwestern League duals are on tap this weekend for the Montezuma-Cortez High School varsity wrestling team. The Panthers will host Fruita-Monument at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 4, and then host Grand Junction Central at 10 a.m. and Palisade at noon Saturday, Feb. 5, in Ron Wright Memorial Gym.

"On Friday we’ve got Fruita," MCHS head coach Mike Allison said. "Right now it looks like Fruita is going to win the league if Fruita beats Grand Junction and Junction beats Durango. On Saturday we’ve got Grand Junction Central and Palisade. Those matches are really going to count at least toward Regional seedings. If you ever want to win a match a dual meet, this is the time to do it."

Allison will then head to Grand Junction to attend the Regional seedings meeting.

"Hopefully, we will get five or six wrestlers with good seed placings. But that is always at guestimate. Every year I’m surprised at how they are seeded," he commented.

Regionals is set for Grand Junction Feb. 11-12. The top four individual placers in each weight division earn the right to advance to the Class 4A State Wrestling Championships which will be held Feb. 17-19 in the new Pepsi Center in Denver.

The Panthers visited Montrose and whipped the one-time SWL powerhouse 50-28 on Jan. 28.

"It was probably the best showing I’ve seen out of Richard Yake (103 pounds) all year long," Allison reported. "He won by pin (3:00) and to have beaten Edoens is a great accomplishment as he was fifth at the Warrior Classic and third at the Rifle Tournament. If he keeps it up he will go through Regionals and go to State."

Lyle Benally, 112, won by forfeit as did Tyler Gray, 119. Travis Spruell, 125, pinned in 2:52. Jared Carver, 120, won by forfeit.

Joey Wynes, 152, won by technical fall 16-1. Cole Allison, 160, won by fall in 2:14. Dan O’Neal, 171, outpointed his opponent 11-5. Judd Yench, heavyweight, won by fall in 3:03.

"It was a good dual," he added. It has been several years since the Panthers have beaten Montrose in a dual.

The Panthers traveled to Grand Junction the next day to face the Tigers. Cortez lost 50-28.

"We had too many close matches in which we should’ve won. We are right there at the end and then we give it up. We start out okay and then say ‘the heck with it, I don’t want to fight.’ Junction does have a better balanced team but they are not that much better than we are. But I felt we matched up well enough to have given them a better fight," he said.