Three Philomath wrestlers reached the finals and the team’s defending state champion took first place at Saturday’s Perry Burlison Invitational at Cascade High School.
Junior Riley Barrett rolled through his first three opponents at 157 pounds with a pair of technical falls and a pin to reach the championship match. There, he faced Hunter Bras, a top wrestler out of Soldotna, Alaska. Barrett worked for a 12-8 decision.
At 150 pounds, junior Porter Compton defeated his first three opponents on a technical fall and two decisions. In the semifinals, he took a 5-2 victory over Tyler Basey of Dallas. That put him in the championship match where he lost by pin against Michael Dickinson of Soldotna.
Junior Lake Mulberry at 215 pounds quickly defeated his first two opponents with pins in 17 seconds and 1:14. In the semifinals, he moved past Crook County’s Ethan Lamphere on a 17-10 decision. Cascade’s Matthew Hinkle beat Mulberry in the finals, 7-1.
One other PHS wrestler was a placewinner with senior River Sandstrom’s fourth-place showing at 120 pounds. Sandstrom dropped a close match on a tiebreaker to Nathan Ramirez of Dallas to open the tournament and then worked his way into the third-place match with victories on a 12-5 decision and 16-1 technical fall. There, he went up against Ramirez in a rematch and again lost a close one on a 4-2 decision.
Among the team’s other wrestlers, sophomore Wyatt Barrett at 144 pounds and senior JJ Lewis at 175 pounds each had 2-2 records in the tournament. Junior Lukas Hernandez at 138 also won a match.
Coach Troy Woosley was missing at least three varsity wrestlers for the season-opening tournament. As a team, the Warriors finished seventh in the 20-school invitational with 95.5 points. Crook County took first with 238.5 and the Alaska school was second at 217.5.
In the junior varsity portion of the tournament, junior Derick Kohn won the 215-pound division with a 13-11 decision in finals. Sophomore Chase Leslie placed fourth at 215.
Philomath’s wrestling team was involved in a crash on the way home Saturday night when a pickup slammed into the back of its school bus at a railroad crossing on Highway 34 between Interstate 5 and Corvallis.
The Warriors are scheduled to wrestle at home this coming Friday at the Warrior Classic. The action is scheduled to begin at 4 p.m.
