Emporia High School wrestling achieves milestones at winter duals
By Jeremy Shapiro
Monday, January 23, 2012
Share
■E-mail story
■Post a comment
■iPod friendly version
It was a day of milestones Saturday for the Emporia High School wrestling program, and also a good performance on the mat.
The Spartans won four out of five duals to finish second at the Emporia Winter Duals held Saturday at Emporia High School.
An afternoon victory over Valley Center was the 500th dual win in program history.
“It’s a cool milestone because it honors the great tradition of Emporia wrestling,” said EHS coach Dennis Charbonneau. “Back 20 years ago, there were maybe only six or seven duals a year. It’s only the last 15 year or so where we’ve had around 15 duals a year. This is the 51st year of wrestling so that means Emporia has averaged about 10 dual wins a year.”
Charbonneau also picked up his 200th dual win as a coach.
“That’s a tribute to having good kids and teams over the years,” he said.
His son, Brandon, got his 125th career victory earlier in the day and ended the meet with 128 wins. He was a perfect 5-0 on the day to stay undefeated this season. He’s closing in on the school record for career victories.
Noel Torres and Bryce Dakin also won all five matches Saturday.
“I thought both Dakin and Torres did a great job,” Dennis Charbonneau said. “Noel beat the guy ranked ahead of him from Seaman (Byrant Guillen) who was ranked No. 2.”
The dual featured the seventh through ninth ranked teams in Class 5A, No. 7 Topeka Seaman, No. 8 Kapaun Mt. Carmel and No. 9 Emporia. The field also included No. 10 in Class 6A Junction City as well as Valley Center and Washburn Rural.
Maize South and Prairie View were scheduled to compete, but had to withdraw due to illnesses. The format was changed so all the teams faced the five other squads in duals.
EHS won four of five duals to finish second overall. Junction City won the event with a 5-0 record. Overall, EHS won 44 of 60 head-to-head matchups.
“I thought we wrestled very well,” Dennis Charbonneau said. “Even the dual we lost, we wrestled well. I was pretty pleased.”
The Spartans started the day with a 50-15 rout of Washburn Rural. In the second dual, EHS downed Topeka Seaman 48-27.
The Spartans got off to a good start against Junction City when Max Detwiler and Garrett Whitson won tough matches. Detwiler fell behind Brandon Bramlage 5-2 early, but got an escape and a take down midway through the second period to tie it at 5. He earned the lead with two points with 51 seconds left and closed out the match for the 7-5 win.
Whitson got an early two and then neither wrestler got another point until a late escape by Junction City’s Jake Bazan. Whitson hung on for the 2-1 win. He was 4-1 on the day.
The Blue Jays got on the scoreboard with defending state champion Kevin Perez’s 120 pound 13-3 win over Isaac Russell. But the Spartans fought back with Skyler Carlson’s pin at 126. That put EHS up 12-4.
Emporia got six more points when Dakin pinned Xavier DeGuzman at 132 pounds. The fall occurred with 1:33 left in the second period. Dakin was already ahead 8-0 at the time.
Brandon Charbonneau took a 2-0 early lead on Andrew Millsap at 138. Each wrestler got an escape later on. Millsap avoided trouble for awhile, but eventually Charbonneau added some points and won 7-4.
EHS led 21-4 at that point, but the lead quickly was trimmed to 21-16 when Jamie Garcia and Dylan Jackson both were pinned. Jackson was down almost instantly. He fought for awhile but the fall came 48 seconds into the match. Both Garcia and Jackson won their other four matches Saturday.
At 160 pounds, Torres got the Spartans back on track with a 7-1 win over Kaycee Wagner. Joseph Monrroy at 170 lost a 6-3 decision to Micah Felton. Monrroy had some chances late, but couldn’t quite get Felton down in the final 30 seconds.
The Blue Jays picked up another close win at 182 pounds in double overtime. Sage Eckman of Emporia and James Denton of Junction City were tied at two after three periods. Neither player came close to a score in the first overtime, but in the second overtime Denton escaped. Eckman was in position for a take down a few seconds later, but the wrestlers went out of bounds.
At 195 pounds, Rakan Ashi was poised to pick up a win up 3-2, but Junction City’s Jonathan Dirks scored two points with four seconds left to take it 4-3. EHS forfeited the final two weight classes so the Junction City took the dual 37-24.
“We lost some close matches,” Dennis Charbonneau. “If we get those points, they don’t go on Junction City’s score. If we’d won the three close matches, we’d won the dual.”
EHS rebounded with wins over Valley Center 35-24 and Kapaun Mt. Carmel 48-26 to close out the day. EHS is 11-3 in duals this season.
Meanwhile, the Emporia High School junior varsity wrestling team won a meet at Topeka Seaman Saturday.
The Spartans will make the long trip out west this coming weekend for a meet in Garden City.
