MIDDLETOWN — Boosted by 24 points in forfeits, the Upper Lake Cougars defeated the Middletown Mustangs 50-24 in a Coastal Mountain Conference dual meet on Monday in Middletown.
Hurt by injuries, the young Middletown squad had to forfeit at 105, 114, 127 and 287 pounds.
“When you give up that many points your chances of winning are drastically reduced,” Middletown coach Troy Brierly said. “But I”m not really that displeased with how we wrestled. I have a very, very young and inexperienced squad and to go 5-5 against the best team in our conference, at least in my opinion, tells me that we have a bunch of league champions and section qualifiers on this team.”
The rosters of both teams are dominated by underclassmen this season.
“The vast majority of my wrestlers are sophomores and I think next year we”ll be in the hunt,” Brierly said. “By the time they”re seniors, we”ll be very solid.”
As Brierly alluded to, Middletown and Upper Lake split the 10 contested matches Monday right down the middle, each team winning five.
The biggest match of the night — certainly the one that held the most intrigue — was at 130 pounds where Middletown”s Nolan Tkachenko moved up from 125 pounds so that he could tangle with Upper Lake”s standout freshman, Ward Beecher.
Beecher held a 2-1 lead with 15 seconds left in the match when Tkachenko struck.
“He got a reverse and stuck him,” Brierly said. “It was a move they call a head chancellor. Once he got it hooked in deep it was over.”
“It”s one of the best matches I”ve watched this season,” Brierly said. “It was one heck of a chess match and it came down to who made the first mistake.”
“That”s the first time he”s been pinned,” Upper Lake coach Tom Cox said of Beecher.
Beecher and Tkach-enko, a sophomore, could meet later this month in the CMC Championships at Lower Lake.
Middletown”s other wins came at 137 pounds, where Anthony Castaldo won by third-round pin; at 142 pounds, where Jarrod Rudy edged Bruce Tucker 9-8; at 154 pounds, where Tyler Hamilton decisioned Bradley Brackett 13-7; and at 162 pounds, where Dorian Decker won by second-round pin.
In addition to the four forfeits, Upper Lake winners were Fwee Chao by 19-4 technical fall over Brandon Earl at 121 pounds; Brandon Sneathen by second-round pin at 147 pounds; Ben Britten by second-round pin at 173 pounds; Andrew Frazier by 10-7 decision at 191 pounds; and Cory Barnett by first-round pin at 217 pounds.
“There were three swing matches and we lost them all,” Cox said of the Tkachenko-Beecher match, the Rudy-Tucker match and the Hamilton-Brackett match.
“But we also had some young kids really come through,” Cox said of wins by Frazier at 191 pounds and Barnett at 217.
“We were a little flat tonight,” Cox said. “We”ve just got to keep getting better.”
