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Show Vikes claim 1 Of h in own wrestlina tournev r By G. BRETT HART Sports Editor BOUNTIFUL Grapplers at Viewmont High geared up to host the 10th annual Viewmont Invitational Tournament Friday and Saturday. The 18-team tourney has been a traditional tuneup for the 3 A and 4A state wrestling meets held in February. Alta took first place in the Viewmont Invitational In-vitational last year and went on to capture the state 4A title. This year, however, the tournament team honors went to powerhouse Wasatch High which also won the Layton tournament earlier this season. Viewmont Vikings - Viewmont's highest finisher was 145-pound Max Freestone, who claimed claim-ed second place in his class. This was Freestone's first tournament appearance ap-pearance of the season after nursing a lingering ankle injury back to health. : Lee Mahlstede earned a 3rd place medal in the 189-pound slot while teammate Royce Barraclough finished 5th at 1 19. ; Finally, the Vikes had three 6th place winners including John Rosenlund, Lance Wersland and Steve Bender in the 103, 140 and 152-pound 152-pound divisions respectively. f Though Viewmont coach Bart Thompson thought his team would finish higher, the Vikings finished 10th. Thompson stated before the tournament that Viewmont would be hard r pressed to win. "We've got a lot of young kids and have temporarily lost a few due to illness and injury." Thompson added that he was encouraged by his team's performance in the junior varsity tournament held at Clearfield on Nov. 8. "In the J.V. and Layton tournaments, a lot of our kids realized that they probably could have placed or placed higher than they did. "I wouldnt necessarily say that this year's tournament will be a precursor precur-sor for the state tournament because a couple of the top 4A teams like Brighton and Hillcrest weren't here," Viking coach Bart Thompson said. "However, except for missing Brighton and Hillcrest in the 4A bracket and Uintah in the 3A bracket, this tournament was as tough or tougher than the 4A state tournament. Bountiful Braves Two Bountiful High wrestlers place in the Viewmont tournament. Co-captains Co-captains Marshall Jones and Scott Olson took 4th and 5th places, respectively. respec-tively. Jones claimed 4th place honors in the 152-pound bracket, and Olson took 5th in the 130-pound class. "We wrestled a lot like we did at Tooele. There was some tough competition," com-petition," Bountiful coach Jerry Staley said, "We're a young team, so it's tough to do well. 'Our heavyweight (Andrew Ord) came away with a couple of wins, and that was encouraging." The Braves will return to action Thursday night at home against the West High Panthers at 7:30. "I haven't heard much about West this season, but they're usually one of the top teams in the region to beat ' Staley added. "Hopefully, it will be close." Davis Darts Davis coach Alan Porter said, "We didn't do real well; there were a couple of matches we should have won." The Darts also had two grapplers place in the weekend tournament. Travis White lost in overtime 4-2 to fall to fourth place in the 1 12 division. Jason Robinson lost his first match of the season 7-3 to Jake Meller of Payson High to take second in the 130-pound class. Robinson now boasts a 10-1 record. "We should have won that match, but we wrestled Meller's style instead of taking it to him ' Porter explained. The Viewmont tournament featured varsity teams from Evanston, Wyo., Mountain Crest, Box Elder, Bonneville, Clearfield, Layton, Davis, Bountiful, Boun-tiful, Highland, Taylorsville, Alta, American Fork, Pleasant Grove, Timp-view, Timp-view, Payson, Cedar City and Wasatch. |