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Show The Uintah Utes emerged once again as the winner in the annual Uintah-Union Uintah-Union wrestling war in Vernal as they thumped the Cats by the score of 32 to 12. All the matches, except the 138 and 167 pound contests, were close encounters en-counters of the first kind all the way. Only one pin was gained in eleven matches between the Uintah Utes and the Union Cougars, which shows how close the tussling contests were. The Utes' Billy Bedell had to work extremely extreme-ly hard for his fall and finally after two previous near falls he pinned Union's 167 pounder, Bruce Boren, with 11 seconds left in the third round. "My pin was an arm bar with a figure four on the head. It took me a while to get the pin," said Billy Bedell. "Boren got a reversal on it the first time I tried it. He just kept slipping out by putting his arm through." The 112 pound battle featured two tusslers, Foston Chivers and Steve Bowden, who suffered serious injuries last year. Chivers had two knee operations, opera-tions, and Bowden had a bull's horn rip up his stomach. Uintah's Chivers blanked blank-ed Bowden in the closely fought match, 6-0. Chivers gained a takedown and a two-point near fall in the first round. "I was ready to go out these and wrestle him. I was high when I went out there to wrestle him," stated Foston Chivers. "I was pleased with how Foston Chivers wrestled. He wrestled a very smart match. Bowden was tough when he wrestled Frank Jaramillo as a sophomore. He had a horn rip his stomach up. He's pretty darn tough for having that happen to him and being able to come back and wrestle," said Uintah High School wrestling coach, Chuck Henry. Two sophomores, Jeff Good, 119 and Randy Smuin, 145, captured victories for the Uintah Utes in the dual meet . with Union, and one of the sophomores, Randy Smuin, blanked senior, John Brown, 3-0. "Brown was tough. We just showed them sophomore power at Uintah High School with Jelf Good and me," remarked Randy Smuin. Uintah's Jeff Good and Union's Brent Cundall have experienced some exciting ex-citing matches since they began wrestling wrestl-ing each other in 8th grade. Cundall had a 3-1 lead last year as a 9th grader for Roosevelt in the Vernal Tournament, but Good pocketed a takedown and a three-point near fall for a 6 to 3 first place. Good blanked Cundall 3-0 in overtime in the first place battle in the Basin Tournament last season. Both are now sophomores and wrestle at 119 pounds. The 119 encounter in the Uintah-Union meet had the same old closeness favor of 9th grade matches between Cundall and Good. Union's Cundall nabbed a 2-0 lead with a takedown in the first round, but Good garnered an escape and a takedown in the second round. Good blanked Cundall in the third round for a 3 to 2 win, and thus once again Brent Cundall was denied a victory over Good. "I've had quite a few tough matches with Brent Cundall. I knew he would be tough. I wasn't going out on offense at first and then I came on and went on offense. of-fense. I rode him out in the third round," commented Jeff Good. "He was blocking my leg, so I grabbed his hand and I was able to stand up. I used a fireman takedown. I got his arm, went under and grabbed the leg on the same side for the takedown." When asked to comment on Uintah's 32 to 12 win over the Union Cougars, Chuck Henry, Uintah's wrestling coach, remarked, "I was pleased with our performance since we haven't wrestled for 11 days because the Murray Mur-ray meet was cancelled due to snow. It kind of hurts when you lay off that long. I thought the score would be a lot closer than 32 to 12. Union has a fine team. Union was one of the toughest opponents op-ponents we have wrestled this year. Those matches were close out there. Dennis Toland, Union's coach, does a nice job with those boys. Billy Bedell is improving each week. Randy Smuin beat a senior. John Brown is a good athlete. A sophomore has to be a pretty good sophomore to beat the type of caliber athlete John Brown is. Jeff Good and Cory McNeill did a good job. They are improving every week." Union gained four wins in the meet with Uintah and one of the Union winners win-ners was Frank Winn, who nabbed a 4-0 win over Kay Smuin in the 155 pound encounter. en-counter. "It was a tough match," said Frank Winn. "He was a tough competitor." com-petitor." The Cougars' head wrestling coach, Dennis Toland, remarked, "I think the kids did all right. We had some close matches. We dropped some close ones we should have won. They were hard fought matches that could have gone cither way." Union's Danny Farnsworth nipped Uintah's Ken Cobbs, 7 to 5, in the heavyweight match. "That has been n running battle between those two kids. Farnsworth did what he had to do to bent Kenny. He didn't make any mistakes and he wrestled the style he had to beat him. I think the crowd saw two state champions in their divisions at heavyweight and 155 pounds. We have n lot of respect for their kids," stated Dennis Toland. |