Tahoma<\/a> made a strong case on Jan. 27 that it has the best wrestling team in the state with a 45-18 victory over Enumclaw <\/a>in the fifth Battle of the Bone.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The Bears got four pins against the Hornets. Both teams came into the match undefeated, with Tahoma the top-ranked team in 4A, while Enumclaw was and likely still is considered the top team in 3A.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cThat just reaffirmed that we\u2019re probably the best team in the state of Washington,\u201d said sophomore 106-pounder Todd Link. \u201cYou can\u2019t just listen to what everyone\u2019s saying\u2026 you can\u2019t come out with the mindset that you\u2019re going to win. You have to fight for it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n And that\u2019s exactly what Tahoma did against Enumclaw.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Steven Hopkins, a senior, got the evening started for Tahoma with a pin of Travis Reano with less than 30 seconds left in the third period.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Hopkins had a 10-3 lead when he got Reano on the mat, including a take down where he spun away from his opponent like a running back dancing away from a linebacker on the gridiron, then zipped in for the two points in the 132 pound match. Hopkins won the 103 pound state title as a sophomore and took fourth place at 119 a year ago.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Hopkins said the biggest surprise of the evening for him was the crowd, which filled the Tahoma gym to capacity, probably close to 1,000 spectators. In fact, there were more people on the Enumclaw side than Tahoma normally gets for league dual meets.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cI think it pumped up our guys,\u201d Hopkins said. \u201cIt gave us a lot of confidence. (Winning) meant a lot in our eyes because they\u2019re the No. 1 ranked 3A team. I was surprised by how much we won by, I didn\u2019t know we were going to win by more than 20 points. It was still pretty intense.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n In the next match senior 138-pounder Joey Palmer, who won the 125 pound class a year ago at another school, put on a take down clinic against Lucas Somera.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Palmer, who will wrestle at Oregon State next year, was a blur on the mat. He would shoot aggressively and quickly, leaving Somera on his heels, on his back or struggling to get out of Palmer\u2019s grip. In the end, Palmer earned a technical fall with a 24-9 victory, allowing Somera to win points only when he let him escape.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Palmer said that even though Tahoma had beaten Mead in a double dual tournament earlier in the season when the Spokane team was ranked No. 1 in 4A, the squad still had its doubters, and beating Enumclaw was the best way to silence the critics.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Still, Tahoma has more to prove this weekend at the South Puget Sound League 4A tournament Friday and Saturday at Kent-Meridian.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cI think we\u2019ll know by the end of league if we\u2019ve achieved our goal,\u201d Palmer said. \u201cThese last two weeks before state are the most important for conditioning.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Link added, \u201cMead was definitely tougher and a measuring stick for state. But, a dual is different than a tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Still, the Bears continued to make a statement in the dual when Tanner Mjelde stepped on the mat.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Mjelde, who competed next at 145, pinned Enumclaw\u2019s Cole Snider shortly before the first period ended.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Dan Haniger nearly had a win over Falani Gill at 152 when he had a chance late in the third period to break a 6-6 tie after scoring a reversal but Gill escaped and held on to the one point victory, 7-6. Haniger, a senior, placed fourth at state in 2011.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Chris McElroy lost in a hard fought match to Ryan Anderson in the 160 pound contest. Anderson sealed it with a take down with 11 seconds left, putting together a 5-1 victory.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Next up was junior Garret Autrey, who also placed at state last year for the Bears with a seventh place finish at 160, who dominated Kelyn Wallin with a 11-0 win in the 170 pound match. Autrey spent much of the third period trying to pin Wallin but had to settle for the decision.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n From there, Austin Perry added another six points to Tahoma\u2019s total with his pin of Wyley Stewart little more than halfway through the second period at 182.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Matt Hopkins put together an escape then a take down in quick succession to earn a 3-0 win late over T.J. Cormier at 195.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Ed Torres got a solid win over Chris Williams, winning 5-2 at 285 pounds.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Enumclaw freshman Hunter Haney struggled against Tahoma\u2019s Todd Link, a sophomore, who put together a 6-2 victory.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Tim Whitehead got the Bears final pin of the night at 113 pounds when he put Garrett Jorosz down on the mat with 28.1 seconds remaining in the second period.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The evening ended in front of a packed Tahoma gym with sophomore Cruz Velasquez fighting it out against Enumclaw\u2019s Tyke Reid.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n With little less than 90 seconds left in the match it was tied at 2-2 but with 32 seconds on the clock, Velasquez scored a reversal and held on for the 4-3 victory, sealing the win over Reid.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Jesse Vaughan, who lost a tough match at 126, said the win over Enumclaw proved a great deal.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cI think our line up is one of the most solid in state,\u201d Vaughan said. \u201cWe have so much depth that we have some state participants on the C team. We want to take what we\u2019ve learned against (opponents) and advance\u2026 whether that\u2019s in the bracket or to the next week.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Haniger added that wins over teams like Enumclaw and Mead means Tahoma is going in the right direction.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cIt means to us that we\u2019re on track,\u201d he said. \u201cWe know that we\u2019re among the top teams in the state\u2026 and the way we\u2019re able to do it so dominantly.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Matt Hopkins explained that beating Enumclaw raised the profile of the team among his classmates.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cI went to school and people were talking about it,\u201d Matt Hopkins said. \u201cThat dual\u2026 it made wrestling strong in our school.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Heading into the post-season, the goal for the first state crown for the Bears since the mid 90s isn\u2019t so lofty if they qualify the 15 or so competitors they expect to get, Haniger said they can count on their reputation to precede them.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cOur depth is going to be a factor at tournaments,\u201d Haniger said. \u201cThey\u2019re trying to beat Tahoma. That\u2019s a team everyone wants to beat. We\u2019ve been silencing the critics all year. People will still doubt our performance and us because people think we\u2019re a dual meet team.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Haniger said despite any critics that may remain the goal to win state remains.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re gearing up for our entire team to have their best tournament at state,\u201d Haniger said. \u201cWe\u2019re hoping to take more kids to the state tournament that we ever have in our long tradition.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n In the end, the Battle of the Bone was a fine tune up for the post-season for Tahoma, whom Matt Hopkins said certainly made a case to be considered the best team in the state.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cI think that made a statement,\u201d he said.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tahoma made a strong case on Jan. 27 that it has the best wrestling team in the state with a 45-18 victory over Enumclaw in the fifth Battle of the Bon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":11164,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-11163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11163"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11163"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=11163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}