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Show I Park City wrestlers lose the battle but win the matches I by Randy Hanskat The Battle of the Bulge. Sure, you remember the famous World War II battle, but there is another battle of the bulge in high school i wrestling. It involves the ' weight classes from 155 ! pounds up to heavyweight. I Since Park City is not an i area which prides itself on i "big" boys, you might expect that filling those upper weight classes would ! be difficult for the wrestling j team. It is, and that is part of ; the reason Park City lost its wrestling match with Ogden Nov. 23. The Miners had to forfeit the four uppermost ! weight classifications along with three others, giving away a total of 42 points, and ultimately losing by a score of 50-17. ! But in the varsity matches that the Miners did wrestle, they did well, winning three, tying one, and losing one. The junior varsity kids won two and lost four in non-point exhibition matches. After forfeiting the 98-pound 98-pound classification, the Miners put Greg Reed at 105 pounds. Reed took three rounds to win on points 5-4 over Bill Ballantyne of Ogden. Then the Miners forfeited the 112 pound weight. Next came Ocey Leavitt, a Miner bright spot from last week, against Steve Larkin of Ogden. The 119-pound match also went into three rounds, but Leavitt couldn't hold off Larkin, who Miner Coach Jesse .Schaub called "a real specimen, their toughest guy." The pin came with only 15 seconds left in the match. The 126-pound bracket was a forfeit. Then Miner Mike Birch grappled with Tom Lightner at 132 pounds. This was another good match, going the full three rounds. Birch, a leader of the Miner squad, was trailing 8-4 at the end of the second round, but used two takedowns in the final round to knot the final score at 9-9. Two Miner victories followed. fol-lowed. At 138 pounds Miner Eric Robinson flip-flopped with Dave Huntington of Ogden for three rounds, combining for a total of nine reversals, before Robinson put the pin on his opponent with 30 seconds left in the match. Then Geoff Palmer of Miner football fame stepped up at 145 pounds against Bruce Slaughter. Palmer was in no mood to play, and pinned Slaughter at the end of the first round. On the junior varsity side, Miner John Vetterli and Rob Rawlings of Ogden went three rounds at 112 pounds before Rawlings emerged with an 8-5 win. But Grant Thomas redeemed the Miners by whipping Ogden's Doug Olmstead 5-0 in three rounds. Miner Mark Richardson Ri-chardson went down at 126 pounds to Cory Frasciss, as did Steve Jacobson at 132 to Ogden's Troy Hart. Miner Mike Brose more than held his own against Perry Lightner Light-ner at 145 pounds, cleanly pinning him only 30 seconds into the match. And finally, at 155 pounds, Brent Adams went down at the hands of ' Allen Mooney cf Ogden in a second-period pin. . Since wrestling is as much an individual sport as it is a team sport, single wrestlers can make it to the state tournament on their own merits, irrespective of the team scores. Looking at the Ogden match in that light, the varsity matches which actually took place turned up a 17-8 victory for the Miners. j It was a good showing for( the Miners, who had not done well in last week's match with Green River and South Rich. Coach Jesse Schaub said the Miners did a better job this week of staying off of their backs, but that there are still problems. "They aren't alert enough on their feet," he explained. "They react a bit too slowly." He added that in wrestling it is important to get the first takedown in the match because it gives a big psychological lift. Park City is not getting the first takedown yet. Of the 11 matches wrestled Wednesday, Wednes-day, the Miners got the first takedown in only three. But Schaub was pleased with his kids. Ogden has almost 70 kids out for this year's wrestling program they are able to fill every weight class but Schaub said the Park City kids weren't intimidated by the sheer numbers of the Ogden squad. The next competition for the Miners will be Friday and Saturday in the Evans-ton Evans-ton Tournament. Schaub said last year there were 12 teams in the Wyoming event, and he expects about the same this year. It will give the Miners a chance to wrestle some of the larger Wyoming schools. Also, there is a junior varsity tournament in Evanston, said Schaub. Usually the junior varsity matches are only exhibition and do not count for points, he said. But in Evanston they will count. |