2/21/16

Another spectacular Mat Classic is in the books and this year we took in as much as we could to find some fun and interesting tidbits that are so easy to overlook. With more than 1,200 wrestlers and hundreds of teams there is no doubt there are literally thousands of stories or fact to delve into but these are the ones we found and hope you find them as interesting as we did.

Team Standings Fun Facts:

The Team Standings had some interesting numbers as well for instance the Girls Champion Grandview scored a total of 92 points the only Champion with less than 100 points. The girls also had 89 schools score at least 1 point. The opposite was the 1A Tournament where the top 5 teams scored more than 100 points with Deer Park leading the way 156, Colville 151.5, Vashon Island 129, Montesano 125 and Granger with 105. There was a reason so many points were at the top as only 39 schools scored any points.

The 3A was similar with 4 schools above the century mark led by team Champions Arlington with 148. 2nd place was Mt Spokane with 126, Bonney Lake with 117 and Edmonds-Woodway with 106. 47 schools scored in the 3A tourney. The 4A title saw Lake Stevens at the top with 121 points and Moses Lake scoring 103 and a total of 48 teams tallying at least a point. The 2A tournament had Toppenish claim the title with 154 and Orting with 143.5 with 50 teams scoring a point and finally the B tourney saw Warden lead the way scoring a team high 176 points while Tonasket put up 134.5 and 3rd place Reardan with 117.5 points with only 39 teams scoring.

And that wraps up this edition of fun facts of Mat Classic 28, we are sure there are many other facts and stories and this is there very tippy top of the ice berg. We hope you enjoyed this odd look at Mat Classic 28.

First Win of the Tournament:

This went to a little known Freshman from Colville Trevor Morrison who pinned his man in 1:16. Morrison can thank his official for getting the match underway at the buzzer as two other 106’ers pinned their opponent in a quicker time, Leah Olsen of Sedro-Woolley in 1:02 in the girls tourney and Dalton Port from Clarkston in just 26-seconds in the 2A. But it was Morrison’s arm raised first to kick-off the Classic. Morrison did have something else in common with both Olsen and Port, both made it to the Finals where Port won the title as Morrison did while Olsen settled for 2nd.

Fastest Pin of the Tournament:

Mason McDaniel of Edmonds-Woodway took a total of 13-seconds to complete his 1st round of the 3A State 160 classification tournament. McDaniel told us he felt his opponent Kaisen Ludwig from Bonney Lake, begin to move one way after locking up and quickly turned, threw and applied the winning pin combination in all of 13-seconds. McDaniel would go on to win the 3A 160 State Championship.

McDaniel’s time was just 1-second better than the 2nd fastest time by Trevor Eicher of Deer Park who retired Hazen Kapp of La Center and just 3 seconds faster than Morgan Yates of Sultan who beat Cameron Read of Goldendale. Eicher and Yates both were in the 1A 220 classification. Yates would get a 2nd round pin in just :31 but then lose the Semi-Final and eventually finish 4th.

Eicher would make a habit of quick bouts (see below fun facts) but the most important win was his Championship bout when he pinned Noel Orozco of Connell but it also gave Deer Park the team Championship. Deer Park trailed Colville by 1.5 points with only Eicher left to wrestle between both teams. So it came down to Eicher, if he wins the Stags add another Title to their trophy case and if he lost, Colville would claim the big trophy. Eicher quickly broke the hearts of the suddenly large contingent of Orozco fans when he got him in just 90-seconds.

4 Pin Tournaments:

Heading into the Championship round the wrestling field had been reduced from more than 1,200 competitors to 168. Of those 168 finalists only 27 had advanced to the finals with 3 pins. There were 8 from the girls tournament, 6 from 1A, 3 from the 2A, 5 in 3A and 4 4A wrestlers with perfect marks through 3 rounds. There were no B wrestlers mostly because of the high number of byes in their tournament, we did not count byes or tech falls, these were all wrestlers with 3 actual pins heading into the Finals.

In the end only 7 would complete the all pin tournament. 3 from the girls tournament, Flor Parker-Borrero of Wilson, Desiree Zavala from Grandview and Raquel Gray from Spanaway Lake. 3 from the 1A tournament as well including our 1st winner of the tourney Colville’s Trevor Morrison, from Lakeside 9-Mile Falls Dalton Young and Deer Park’s Trevor Eichor. The final 4 pin Champion came from the 4A tournament Derek Freitag of Kentridge.

4 Pins least and most amount of time on the Mat:

So out of the 7 wrestlers who completed the tournament in less time than anyone else, how little time did they spend on the mat. The least amount of time went to Trevor Eichor of Deer Park. Trevor’s pins times were :14, 1:05, 1:30 and 1:30 for a grand total of 4:29. This is LESS than 2 and a half rounds to complete 4 matches and win a State Title.

Now the flip side is who took the longest to get their 4 pins. This honor goes to Kentridge’s Derek Freitag who clearly never rode out a match for the win and wrestled each match to put his opponent on his back. Freitag took 17:08 to produce his 4 pins or 8 and a half total rounds but in each case it resulted with both standing on the top of the awards stand doing what only 7 other wrestlers did in more than 1,200 winning the big prize with the word Fall and a time underneath each of their wins on the official bracket.