YOUR AD HERE »

MCHS wrestlers to face tough competition in Green River

Banged-up wrestling team to face tough competition in Green River, Wyo.

Cody Adams puts a teammate on his back during a standing fast line drill Wednesday at wrestling practice. Adams was one of the MCHS grapplers to take home a first-place finish in Las Vegas.
Shawn McHugh

Season results

Moffat County High School boys varsity wrestling season totals:

Name / Record / Pins

Justin McAlexander / 5-9 / 1

Jacob Teeter / 15-10 / 6

Cody Nelson / 21-5 / 15

Garrett Stewart / 10-16 / 5

Jacob Blevins / 2-16

Charlie Griffiths / 24-3 / 16

Todd Stewart / 6-8 / 6

Nathan Tomlin / 28-1 / 17

Scott Mann / 22-9 / 17

Justin Zufelt / 2-5

Cody Adams / 21-4 / 12

Ben Winslow / 12-9 / 6

Matt Linsacum / 2-0 / 1

Wyatt Uptain / 3-2 / 1

Trevor Quick / 1-9

Nick Chew / 5-7 / 4

Total / 181-113 / 108

Charlie Griffiths, top, wrestles with Trent Enochs during a standing fast line drill Wednesday in the Moffat County High School wrestling room. Griffiths recently placed first in the Las Vegas Tournament. He and his squad are preparing for this weekend’s Bill Thoman Jr. Memorial Wrestling Tournament in Green River, Wyo.Shawn McHugh

If the Las Vegas Tournament gave the Moffat County High School boys varsity wrestling team a different experience, this weekend’s duals will give them an education, coach Roman Gutierrez said.

The team will travel Friday to the Bill Thoman Jr., Memorial Wrestling Tournament in Green River, Wyo., where Gutierrez said his wrestlers can expect some of the region’s finest grapplers.

“It’s way tougher,” Gutierrez said. “Vegas was a lot weaker than it has been, but we’ll get educated this week.



“Some of those teams are tough. The Wyoming teams are tough. Vernal is tough, so is Chaparral. They’ll be tested.”

The tournament starts at 11:30 a.m. Friday with weigh-ins, and wrestling starts at 1:30 p.m.



The team is coming off a successful trip to Las Vegas, where it finished second overall.

One pleasant surprise was the performance of Moffat County’s young wrestlers, Gu­­tierrez said.

“I felt really comfortable with some of our younger kids, as far as improvement that they’ve made,” he said. Jacob “Teeter didn’t place, but I thought he made some strong gains over the weekend.

“Garrett Stewart finished third — he’s just building and building every week. Now, we have a setback with him. With his elbow, he should be out for two weeks.”

The injuries are unfortunately starting to pile up, Gutierrez said.

“Cody wrestled with a broken hand all day Saturday, and he’ll be out for three weeks,” he said. “With Nathan (Tomlin), we don’t know right now when he will be released. And that hurts, especially in dual meets like this weekend in Green River.”

Gutierrez said the team’s focus is returning wrestlers in time for the Feb. 12 regional meet and the Feb. 18 state meet.

“Hopefully, we can get healthy and get everyone back and ready for regionals and state,” he said. “That’s my main concern.”

With the injuries, Moffat County might be shorthanded in Wyoming.

“We don’t have the numbers to shuffle them around,” Gutierrez said. “We’ll be able to fill Nathan’s spot with (Nick) Chew. We just don’t have the numbers to fill all the other holes.”

The Green River tournament is all duals until the end, when the top two wrestlers in each class are selected for the “Best of the Best” match.

The way Moffat County’s uninjured upperclassmen wrestled at Las Vegas could be an indicator to future success, Gutierrez said.

“As long as the kids keep picking it up and keep gaining, we’ll be fine,” he said. “Our conditioning looked good; we didn’t run out of gas.”

Moffat County will have a bye week next week, then travel to Meeker.

The week at home will allow some banged-up Bulldogs to get healthy, Gutierrez said.

“I don’t know if we’ll get them all back, but we won’t rest,” he said. “The practices will stay pretty intense until we get to the first week in February, when we will release them a little earlier.”

Ben Bulkeley can be reached at 875-1795 or bbulkeley@craigdailypress.com.


Support Local Journalism

Support Local Journalism

Readers around Craig and Moffat County make the Craig Press’ work possible. Your financial contribution supports our efforts to deliver quality, locally relevant journalism.

Now more than ever, your support is critical to help us keep our community informed about the evolving coronavirus pandemic and the impact it is having locally. Every contribution, however large or small, will make a difference.

Each donation will be used exclusively for the development and creation of increased news coverage.