Dodge City Globe Article - Southwest Classic Story last updated at 8:45 a.m. Monday, January 12, 2004
Huck, Burns finish second at Southwest Classic
By John Curtis
Dodge City Daily Globe
LIBERAL -- Two wrestlers finished second in their weight classes to highlight the area's performance at the Southwest Wrestling Classic.
Dodge City's Brady Huck at 112 pounds and Cimarron-South Gray's Spencer Burns at 145 pounds both finished the weekend with 3-1 records as they battled all the way to the final of their divisions.
Huck reached the finals with a pin and two decisions, and had just tied his title match against Rusty Wickman of Hays in the third period at 6-6 with a takedown. But just as quickly, Wickman was able to reverse the move and record a pin at 4:46.
"I had a good day (Friday, but) I got caught and that happens," Huck said. "We have a big tournament at Newton and I need to get into the room and work on defending those types of moves to get my win total back up."
Burns reached the final in his division after recording two technical falls and a decision. But Burns ran into Devin Valasquez of Amarillo Tascosa, who is ranked No. 1 in Texas in the same weight class. Valasquez won by a technical fall score of 19-4.
"It was a pretty good tournament and that's the match I wanted, but it didn't happen," Burns said. "I guess he's ranked No. 1 for a reason. I'm just going to wrestle my style at a better pace. He wrestled harder than I did and won."
The Red Demons scored 80 points as a team and had two other wrestlers place in the meet -- Patrick Whissenand finished third at 103 and Anthony Garcia was fourth at 215. It was Whissenand's and Garcia's first time in the Southwest Classic.
Despite only three placing in the meet, Demons head coach Brent Cunningham was pleased that all of his wrestlers continue to show improvement since the start of the season.
"The month of January is a tough month, but good competition is going to make us better for the state tournament," Cunningham said. "We had four other guys one match away from placing and Newton is next weekend. We just need to keep working and start winning those close matches.
"We've had a lot of guys turn a complete 360 and they are different wrestlers from what I've seen (at the beginning of the year). It's been good."
Whissenand finished the tournament with a 4-1 record, with his 13-7 decision over Amarillo Randall's Cody Duffendack clinching his third place finish.
"I expected to win after my loss (in Friday's semifinals). It made me determined to win today," Whissenand said. "I had a pretty good record and I wanted to keep it. Newton is going to be a lot tougher and I'm expecting a lot. I'll go in hoping to win."
Garcia finished 3-2 on the weekend, but was pinned in his final match against Randall's Feli Pedrosa. Garcia said he also plans to use his disappointment in how he finished as motivation for the Newton tournament.
"(The Classic) helped us out (in that) it helps us know what we need to work on," he said. "We need to work on moving more and getting our shots and getting out of the bottom (position)."
Cimarron-South Gray finished with 60 points as a team -- a 22-point improvement from a year before. Courtney Nightengale went 3-2 in the meet and placed for CSG with a fourth place finish at 160 pounds to go along with Burns' placement.
"It's not quite what I expected I guess," said CSG head coach Lance Walker. "We only had two kids who placed and we've never had two kids place in this meet before this year, so maybe my expectations here are higher than maybe they should be.
"I'm not displeased because they wrestled hard and this is a tough tournament. We'll continue to work to get better."
Nightengale's loss in the third place match was disheartening after tying the match with one second left in regulation and having an apparent takedown called out of bounds, only to lose to Liberal's Joey Buckland 4-2 in overtime.
"It was a tough match. It was a referee's call and I don't want to take anything away from them," Nightengale said after the match. "The kid just came out and I stopped, and he just had more in it than I did (on the takedown)."
Sublette finished the tournament with 42 points and had two wrestlers go through the losers' brackets to place sixth in the meet -- Joey Scott at 119 and David Harris at 152. Both wrestlers finished 4-3 on the weekend. The Larks scored six points as a team last season.
"We did a lot better this eyar and we keep getting scrappier," said Sublette head coach Joe Arellano. "We did three times better than last year (in our performance)."
