Show Utah wrestling team captures places at national tourney The Utah team captured seven places at the National AAU MU Junior Olympic wrestling tournament In Montreal Canada on June 26 and 27 21 Dave Gillespie of Salt Lake City collected first place honors in inthe inthe inthe the heavyweight division The pound Gillespie c conquered four tour wrestlers to gain his title UTAH HAD ONE second place winner in Vic Conner of Hillcrest Conner anat snatched hed his silver medal in the pound division The Utah team also had four fourth places daces The fourth place finishers for Utah were S Steven ven Weight Box Dox BoxElder BoxElder Elder High John Stutz St Orem John Cordova Bingham m High and Guy Gritton Hillcrest Steve Owen Olympus bagged sixth place Other Utah wrestlers who tussled at the tourney were Kent Sweat Wasatch John Duffy Payson and Scott Ruppe Vernal Scott Huppe a wrestler from Canada 13 12 for fora a a first round win Ruppe Huppe lost his next match to Steve Weight of Box Elder by decision Ruppe Huppe was pinned in his final match by a junior In college Two teams from the United States Stales a national squad and Utah took part in the tourney Canadian teams also competed in the matches There were ten wrestling divisions The United States bagged five first place titles and Canada captured five HIGH School wrestling coach Dennis traveled with the ten Utah to Montreal It U was a great experience for the kids It was a rehearsal for forthe forthe forthe the Olympics It was a great experience to know what it is like to be in the Olympics commented said that his team was quite young and that many of the wrestlers were freshmen and sophomores in college He lie said that the National I A AAU tl Junior Olympic tourney j was w s conducted just like the Summer o Olympics I I cs y vr c The wrestling matches matche consisted of or three rounds each Each round lasted three minutes Scott Ruppe Huppe was Vernal's representative at the tour tour- It was a great ex ex- ex to be able to go there and wrestle There were a lot of tough wrestlers There were two national champions in my weight Just to be able to go and stay at the Olympic Village and see everything that Dial we did was worth it remarked Ruppe Ruppes Ruppe's final match was against a Canadian wrestler who was a former National AAU Junior Olympic Cham Cham- pion |