LINCOLN — The only North Coast Section team present out of the 29 squads entered, the Upper Lake Cougars turned in a strong showing with a seventh-place finish Saturday during the Mark Fuller Invitational wrestling tournament at Lincoln High School.
Three sections –North Coast, North and Sac-San Joaquin — were represented. Two Nevada schools — Reno and McQueen — also participated.
“I thought it was a great tournament for us,” Upper Lake coach Tom Cox said.
The Cougars didn”t even take a complete team and many of their 10 wrestlers were nursing an assortment of bumps and bruises, according to Cox.
Travis Coleman had the best tournament of the all Cougars even though he was wrestling up a weight class at 125 pounds. It didn”t seem to bother him as he won all four of his matches to bring home a first-place medal. His final victory came against the third-seeded wrestler in the North Section, a match in which he trailed by three points in the second round before turning his opponent and pinning him late in the round.
Bruce Tucker added a third-place medal at 145 pounds, his only loss in five matches coming against the state”s No. 7 seed. Tucker couldn”t see out of one eye in his final match, the result of contact from earlier in the tournament. He also accidentally broke his opponent”s nose in the third-place match.
Tony Lopez went 3-2 and finished fifth at 105 pounds. He beat an opponent in the fifth-place match who he lost to earlier in the tournament.
Ward Beecher ended up sixth at 135 pounds. He advanced to the semifinals and lost there, then retired from the tournament, according to Cox.
“He”s a little beat up and we wanted to keep him fresh for a league match on Wednesday. We also have a big tournament (in Sacramento) on Saturday.”
The Cougars added a seventh-place medal at 215 pounds, where Joey Valdez lost his first match but came back with three straight wins.
“He lost to a kid who went on to take second,” Cox said.
“He was doing well in that match but he made a rookie mistake. After that, the best he could do was seventh and that”s what he did.”
Nine of Upper Lake”s 10 wrestlers won at least two matches, according to Cox.
“We wrestled tough,” Cox said.
Upper Lake begins defense of its Coastal Mountain Conference championship Wednesday at home against Lower Lake and Willits at 5 p.m.
