The four area high school wrestling teams were busy on Saturday, Jan. 6, the first day wrestling teams could return to action following the Christmas-New Year’s break. Montezuma-Cortez finished fourth at the Florence Tournament. Dolores County and Dolores competed at Pagosa Springs while Mancos participated at the Nucla Tournament.

Palisade ran away with winning the Florence Tournament while Weld Central finished a distant second, Lewis-Palmer took third, and MCHS fourth. Other schools competing were Walsenburg, and Canon City.

"It was a good tournament to come back to open up with from the break," MCHS head coach Mike Allison remarked. "We were in good shape. I thought we did pretty good considering we were missing four weights."

Cortez did have a few changes for the Florence Tournament in coming off the holiday vacation. Two wrestlers — Lyle Benally dropped to 112 pounds and Tyler Gray dropped to 119 — and it helped both of them. But MCHS still has two open spots at 130 and 135. Jared Carver moved up to 140. The heavyweight and 103 were open because of injuries as well.

"But those who were at the tournament really wrestled well," Allison added. "We had six in the semifinals and got four through."

Gray won his class. Gray major decisioned Sean Baran of Lewis-Palmer 15-2, with most of those points coming in the second period which he dominated. Cole Allison won at 171. Allison pinned Josh Vailpando of Walsenburg in 3:10 after controlling the match from the get-go. He had him down 13-0 before legging him and pinning him.

Benally placed second after being decision 2-6 by Josh Callahan of Lewis-Palmer. Benally got caught at the beginning and then was beating him but not scoring the rest of the way through. Nick Martinez, 145, got caught in a three-quarter Nelson and was pinned in 19 seconds by a Palisade wrestler.

In the consolation finals, Carver won by fall over Lee Oranes of Fountain-Fort Carson in 2:53 for third place. Dan O’Neal, 160, clobbered Mike Batullis of Florence 15-1 for third. Michael LeCompte, 215, was pinned by a Lewis-Palmer grappler in 2:27.

"We did good. I was pleased with how well we came out. I thought coming off that week, the kids came back in good shape. Some of them did some open gym stuff," Allison added.

The Panthers travel to Monticello, Utah, for a dual beginning at 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 11, and then travel to compete at the Mullen Tournament all day on Saturday, Jan. 13.

Dolores and Dolores County competed at Pagosa Springs.

Only three Dove Creek wrestlers went to Pagosa. Kyle Riddell, who dropped from 112 to 103, won first place. He defeated an Alamosa wrestler and Aztec (N.M.) grappler, and a Pagosa Springs opponent. He beat an undefeated Bloomfield, N.M., wrestler 8-4 in the finals.

"I thought Kyle did an outstanding job," DCHS head coach Shane Baughman commented. "He really looked good, especially coming off the break."

Casey Spitzer, 119, finished in fifth place despite finishing the tourney with a 4-1 record. He lost his first match and the best he could do was finish in fifth, according to Baughman. Randy Curtis, 130, went 0-2.

Derek Thompson captured first place for Dolores High School. Shawn Everett placed fourth while Tyler Hicks placed seventh and Colter Dunagan eighth.