John Buban is usually too focused on the match at hand to hear anything, particularly the crowd.<\/p>\n
That changed Wednesday night at Tahoma High, when the Bears\u2019 145-standout wrestler brought the crowd to its feet and, in the process, went speechless.<\/p>\n
With the crowd and his teammates chanting his last name in unison, Buban edged Kentwood star Cody Quinn 9-7 in overtime, propelling Tahoma past rival Kentwood, 37-27, in a pivotal South Puget Sound League North Division dual meet.<\/p>\n
Buban entered the final period trailing Quinn, a three-time state placer, 6-3. The Tahoma senior tied the match 7-7 with 18 seconds remaining, then secured the victory with a takedown in overtime.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Coach Chris Feist) gives us talks about how we want to win it for the team because we hadn\u2019t beaten Kentwood in like 10 years,\u201d Buban said. \u201cThat was the first thing that came to mind. Going into overtime, that\u2019s when I first started picking up the (fans). Usually I only hear the coach … but I could hear it behind me.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat strengthened my resolve.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Bears (3-0) had plenty of reason for resolve Wednesday night. After all, Kentwood (1-1) hadn\u2019t lost a league dual meet since Jan. 13, 2006, a stretch of 18 straight wins. That run of dominance included two North Division titles, crowns the Conquerors earned by beating the Bears.<\/p>\n
The Bears, whose only losses the last two years have come against this same Kentwood squad, wasn\u2019t about to let it happen again.<\/p>\n
And Buban provided just the kind of spark Tahoma needed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a huge lift for us and really deflated their bench,\u201d said Feist. \u201cYou could see the energy go out of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tahoma\u2019s Nick Bayer, who won the state title at 160 pounds last year, was equally impressed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was huge,\u201d said Bayer, who pinned Kentwood\u2019s Jose Hernandez in 50 seconds Wednesday night in the 171-pound bout. \u201cThat was like we won the dual. It gave us so much momentum, so much hope.\u201d<\/p>\n
Buban\u2019s win, however, wasn\u2019t the difference in the meet, Kentwood coach Ken Sroka noted.<\/p>\n
\u201cTahoma controlled tie ups all day. They came out to wrestle and Quinn\u2019s match was just one of many that we let them control,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
As for Kentwood\u2019s long winning streak …<\/p>\n
\u201cDual meets, I like to go out and win them all, but we\u2019re just going to go to practice tomorrow and work on the things we need to do to get ready for our next meet,\u201d Sroka said.<\/p>\n
With five North Division duals still ahead, including perennial power Auburn remaining on the horizon, the Bears are far from being anointed the top dogs in the SPSL North.<\/p>\n
But Wednesday night\u2019s victory certainly puts Tahoma in the driver\u2019s seat.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe job\u2019s not done,\u201d Feist said. \u201cWe expected to beat this team if we wrestled to our ability and we came out and did that. So we high-fived and celebrated. But tomorrow, it\u2019s done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tahoma won eight of the 14 matches, three via pin. Bayer (171), Tyler Lamb (135) and Zach Schuessler (152) all earned pins for the Bears.<\/p>\n
Kentwood\u2019s Greg Smith (189) was the only Conqueror of the night to register a pin, doing away with Zach Dopps in 5:45.<\/p>\n
Aside from that match, 103-pound standout Ruben Navejas provided the biggest highlight for the Conks, working over Tahoma\u2019s Steve Hopkins in a 15-0 technical fall.<\/p>\n
Navejas\u2019 win opened the meet and began a run of three-straight victories for the Conquerors as they took a 12-0 lead. Tahoma responded with six-straight victories to take control of the meet.<\/p>\n
But the pivotal point came at 145 pounds, when Buban knocked off Quinn. He hadn\u2019t beaten Quinn in two matches last year or in several attempts on the freestyle circuit.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe just beat me all over the place,\u201d Buban admitted. \u201cThis feels really good.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
John Buban is usually too focused on the match at hand to hear anything, particularly the crowd. That changed Wednesday night at Tahoma High, when the Bears\u2019 145-standout wrestler brought the crowd to its feet and, in the process, went speechless. With the crowd and his teammates chanting his last name in unison, Buban edged […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":20866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-20865","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\/20865"}],"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\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20865"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=20865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}