Medical Lake’s first dip into the Northeast A League’s wrestling pool was a little cold as the Cardinals could not rally enough to stave off a 42-37 loss last Thursday night at home to Riverside.
The middle-weights proved to be the Cards’ downfall after posting wins in their first three weights – two be forfeit – Riverside scored victories in seven of the next nine weight classes.
Senior Zeb Klemke earned a 9-1 major decision at 120 pounds to cap the strong start but after that the only Medical Lake middle-weight wins came from Ricky Petersen with a pin at 138 in 4 minutes, 32 seconds, followed by Anton King’s 6-1 victory at 145.
Six of the nine Riverside wins came via pins.
“We went little to big, we had a chance but didn’t get it done,” head coach Sam Petersen said. “Riverside has a good team and their kids fought off their backs a couple times when we could have put the match away.”
William Kearney capped the night for the Cardinals with his pin in the heavyweight in 5:27.
“We also had some guys who wrestled their tails off,” and wrestled up one or two weight classes Petersen said. They included Seth Rojas (132), King (145) and Roman Kissack (195) and gave great effort, Petersen said. “It is still early in the year and I hope that we learn from the situation.”
Next up is another NEA match at home tonight (Dec. 20) versus Kettle Falls at 7 p.m. The Christmas break follows with the Cardinals returning to tournament competition Dec. 29 at Rogers High in Spokane.
Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.
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