Medical Lake wrestling earn runner-up finish at River City Duals

Medical Lake wrestling’s drive towards the postseason continued to be an impressive path with a runner-up finish in the River City Duals at Post Falls, Idaho, Jan. 13–14.

The Cardinals put on a stout finish in the title match, falling to Ephrata 36–34 as a rally came up just short.

“We didn’t wrestle our best at River City Dual’s, our team has been pretty sick all week,” head coach Matt Leenhouts wrote in an email, leading to forfeits at a few weights. However, “Our kids battled which showed me how much character this team has.”

Against 2A Ephrata, Medical Lake jumped out to a 12-6 lead on wins from Nate Stevens at 160 pounds and Chris Hurt-Moran at 182, both coming by falls. Ephrata took the next four classes and led 30-12 before the Cardinals began their comeback where they won five of the final seven weight classes.

Jun Figueredo (113) and Ethan Davis (132) each won. For Davis, his forfeit victory concluded a perfect weekend, all by pins other than his finale. Justin Warnick (138), Josh Figueredo (145) and Brayden Petersen (152) closed the day with wins.

Earlier, Medical Lake won a 46–33 decision over Lake City of Coeur d’Alene and a 43–24 win against Moscow, Idaho. Petersen won convincingly, 10-0 vs. LC and then scored a 14-0 major decision against Moscow.

Medical Lake lost to Emmett, Idaho 52-28 and 56–24 to Lakeland of Rathdrum. Alex Gonzalez (126) picked up a 9-0 win against Emmett and Thomas an 11-5 victory over Lakeland.

On Jan. 8, Medical Lake lost a 48-30 decision to Colville in Northeast A League competition.

Notable on the night was Trent Baun’s 2-1 win over ML’s Davis. “They both got an escape and Baun got one point on a stall call with 5.1 seconds left in the match,” Leenhouts explained. Thomas pinned his opponent, Kaleb Morris at 120 pounds in 1 minute, 52 seconds.

“The best match of the night was at 106,” Leenhouts said. “It was 19-17 when Skyler (Peterson) got pinned. Both guys wrestled their hearts out.”

A Jan. 10 contest with Newport was postponed due to weather. No makeup date had been announced as of deadline. This week ML is at Lakeside tonight, Jan. 18, at 7 p.m.

Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].