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Bears put up strong resistance at dual

DAVID PRESSGROVECraig Daily Press

CRAIG – The Rifle wrestling team doesn’t have strength in numbers, but it does have strength. The Bears had five open classes in their dual against Moffat County Thursday night, but in the matches they did have, they competed close against the Bulldogs with four wins and five losses. The open classes made a close dual look lopsided with Moffat winning 57-21.”Across the board I thought we wrestled pretty darn good,” said Rifle head coach John Wisniewski. “There are some spots were we can get better before regionals.”The Bulldogs came into the night ranked as the No. 7 team in Class 4A. The Bulldogs had five wrestlers ranked in the top 10 by On the Mat Rankings. The Bears brought two ranked in the top five and three more in the top 12. Three matches pitted ranked wrestlers together. Moffat’s 112-pound, sixth-ranked junior Brice Boling and Rifle’s 11th-ranked freshman James Conrardy were the first ranked pair to match up. Conrardy made it look like the rankings should be reversed. Rifle’s wrestler won the match by reversing Boling four times, which resulted in near-fall points three of those times. With five seconds in the match Conrardy earned a technical fall 18-3. The next match of dually ranked wrestlers was Moffat’s 145-pound, second-ranked senior Korey Kostur and Rifle’s 12th-ranked Derek Fruetel. The first period ended scoreless. Then Kostur took over. wrestling: see next pageHe reversed Fruetel at the start of the second period and took most of the period to work the Bear to his back. With 11 seconds remaining in the period Kostur earned the pin.The final showdown between ranked wrestlers was the closest match of the night. Moffat’s fifth-ranked 152-pound senior Daniel Cramblett and Rifle’s third-ranked Tim Long.Before Thursday the two wrestlers had met four times. They were all close matches won by Long. Cramblett came out as the aggressor, earning two takedowns in the first period for a 4-2 lead. An escape and takedown in the second period gave the Moffat wrestler a 7-3 lead going into the final period. Long fought back with a reversal to make it 7-5, but couldn’t turn Cramblett in the final minute. “Timmy wasn’t feeling that great coming into tonight,” Wisniewski said. “That 152 class is one of the best in the state and I think we’ll see some great matches at the regional.”Cramblett said it was a match he’d been preparing to have for a while.”I knew I had to be more aggressive,” he said. “I couldn’t sit there and wait for him.”Other Bears to win were 130-pound Luke Wooten, 140-pound Brandon Buhlman and 160-pound Tyler Thompson. Wooten pinned Moffat’s Jesse Breslin in 42 seconds. Thompson dominated Moffat’s Trenton Duarte 14-1. Buhlman trailed 8-4 when he reversed the Bulldog freshman Lyle Schaffner and pinned him in the second period.”Brandon has had a tough season, but tonight he wrestled much better,” Wisniewski said. “For a sophomore to pin a Moffat wrestler – it’s a highlight.”Moffat County won the other three matches by pin. Nick Navratil pinned Kyle Coombs 25 seconds into the 189-pound match, Jake Breslin (119 pounds) pinned Alex Avila in 1:26 and Chris McAlexander pinned Kory Vassak in the second period of the 135-pound match.


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