The Dolores Bears brought out the brooms on Wednesday evening, sweeping Shiprock and Mancos in their home tri-meet.
Opening against the Shiprock Chieftains, the Bears dominated, winning every competing match in the first period.
Brandon Ward, Josh Petrow, Cameron Chavez and Zander Eichner each finished off their matches with pins in the first, while David Schmittel and Tezman Hackney picked up wins by forfeit.
Shiprock scored 30 points in the 36-30 Dolores win, all by forfeit.
Following the Dolores/Shiprock dual, Mancos hopped in to take on the Chieftains.
With just five wrestlers, the Blue Jays were outnumbered and gave up 30 points to forfeits in a 39-18 loss.
Andrew Ruatti won by pin and Breccen Morelli and Casey Orange both won by forfeit to score the Blue Jays’ 18 points, while Kaleb Hargraves fell in a 10-4 decision and Cameron Fury was pinned in the second period.
The Bears and Blue Jays met on the mat for the final dual of the evening.
Schmittel and Morelli started things off in the 145-pound class, in what would be the night’s best match.
The two were in a stalemate for most of the first period before Morelli took control and scored to lead 2-0 entering the second. He added an escape point and two takedown points in the second, but Schmittel answered with two reversal and two back points to swing momentum to Dolores and enter the final frame trailing just one, 5-4.
Tied late in the third, the Mancos freshman kicked it into another gear and gained three nearfall points with 14 seconds left to clinch an 5-8 decision win in his first match back from injury.
“He wrestled unbelievably well,” said Mancos head coach Travis White. “He’s a freshman but he’s got a lot of experience and we’ve got high hopes for him. You could tell he was a little gassed, he’s not quite in condition like he needs to be. But he stuck it out and it was impressive and right down to the very end.”
After a string of forfeits for each squad, Petrow and Ruatti ended the night with a 132-pound competition.
Ruatti struck first and went up 2-0, but Petrow answered to even things at two and then rolled Ruatti and settled in for a pin with 49.3 seconds left in the first period, as Dolores claimed the dual with a 30-21 win.
“The kids that we have are really wrestling hard and working hard,” said Dolores head coach Dane Gallaher. “Our numbers are down and we lost a few for ineligibility, but the guys that are here are definitely working hard.”
