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Show CHS wrestlers 9th at tourney OGDEN A ninth place state finish for the - Cedar High School wrestling team was a big improvement over last year, but ! still a little disappointing for a team that had its eyes on the stars. The CHS contingent came in with 51 xk points, the top showing of any team in Region Six's Southern Division. Springville followed in 10th with 51 points, and Payson (48'z), Spanish Fork (46V2), Dixie (20) and Carbon (0), came in further back in the pack. Tooele came up with a strong second-day showing to take this year's 3-A competition. Box Elder placed second and perennial power Uintah was third. Brand new Orem school Mountain View did well in its first try-getting a state fifth. Last year, the Redmen could muster just 23rd in the state, and only Dave Lopour placed in the top six. He took sixth in his This year,th Redmflg took seven wrestlers to state, and each won at least one match-the team came up winners a total of 12 times. And three CHS grap-' plers were able to stand among the elite six: Dave Lopour was 2nd, Dirk Lopour 4th and Chris Hone 6th. "This is the kind of wrestling we should have done"- at region," said departing coach D.J. Wallace. "The only thing that disappointed me was that one referee seemed to be really quick on calling stalling points. That cost Chris Hone one of his matches." Dave Lopour started his trek to the finals with a pin of West's Vance Price in 3:36. Chris Badger of Bountiful was Lopour's second victim, falling 8-3. Lopour took still another lopsided decision in the semis, overcoming Brent Hales of Uintah 12-6. That set up a final between Lopour and Dean Kitchen of American Fork. The two had met earlier in the year, with the Redmen wrestler pinning Kitchen's Kit-chen's only loss of the year on him. This time, a stalling cajl, against. "Kitchen" a" 3-2 win;" Brother Dirk blasted Marcus Melville of Jordan 15-0 before losing in the second round to eventual champion Kline Bradford of Mountain View. "Dirk gave away eight to 10 pounds in almost every one of his matches," mat-ches," said Wallace. "Bradford was just too big and strong for him." But the Cedar 185-pounder, 185-pounder, who weighs no more than 175, came back to pin Orem's Roger Jackson in 3:41 and rout Tooele's Jack Cochran 15-5. 15-5. He lost 2-0 to Robert Steed of Davis in the consolation finals, getting his fourth place. Chris Hone won his first two matches, the first by default, the second with a 7-6 edging of Todd Swendelman of Woods Cross. He then lost his next three matches to end up with the sixth place. The other four wrestlers lost their first and third round matches, mat-ches, while winning second round encounters. Mark Bryant (119) prevailed over Orem's Wade Whiting 6-3, Galen Matheson (132) downed Shannon Culvert of Ben Lomond 5-3, John Davis dumped Tooele's Nordell Brown 5-1 and Bob Miller (Unl) pinned Wayne Workman of Orem in 2:41 to account for the group's wins. "The boys really worked up to it," said '.Wallace, who will leave next''-year's"w resiling coaching to assistant coach Virgil Johnson. "It was a really good experience ex-perience for all of us for the most part." Wallace also added a parting note concerning fan support: "I only wish the general public in Cedar City would follow their wrestlers like they do at Uintah High (Vernal). I can see why they do so well every year. Their community support is really something." v |