Craig — In the home stretch of the season, the Moffat County wrestling team is pushing through the toughest part of the year.

The Bulldogs headed to Delta on Thursday night for a triangular with the Panthers and the Hotchkiss Bulldogs, the start of their final preparations for the end-of-season tournaments.

While it is a high-stress part of the season in terms of the workload throughout the week, the Bulldogs’ results in Delta were not the best. They lost to Delta, 44-17, and Hotchkiss, 42-33.

“We’re in the toughest part of the season, with sprints in the morning, practice in the afternoon, duals midweek and duals on the weekend,” coach Tanner Linsacum said. “So guys are going to be wrestling tired, wrestling a little beat-up, but we still want to see some good results.”

Moffat County was beaten by Delta near the beginning of the season, as well, and couldn’t match Hotchkiss despite both teams giving up forfeit points.

The Delta results come after a 2-5 performance in Green River, Wyo., that had Moffat County wrestling all schools from higher classifications and with fuller rosters. Giving up forfeit points hurt the Bulldogs in each dual in Wyoming, but their wrestling was up and down, as well, Linsacum said.

“It was really a roller coaster, but that’s what our season’s been,” he said. “We’ve had highs and lows. Individuals had a good weekend, though. The guys who’ve been here before and you’d expect to wrestle well did that.”

That was the case in Delta, as well, with Brayden Peterson, Stelios Peroulis and Jesse DeMoor combining to go 4-0. Peterson likes the direction of the team even if it isn’t all the way there.

“Some of us are wrestling well, and I think we’ll definitely take more than last year to state,” he said.

Peterson had a challenging seven matches in Green River, seeing several Wyoming state champions and runners up at 138 pounds. He will need to attack and create more offense, he said, in order to beat that caliber of wrestler at the regional and state meets.

The regional meet is just more than three weeks away, and after wrestling Saturday in Rifle, some easier weeks are on the way. Moffat County wrestles twice the following week and then has a full week off from competition before closing at home Feb. 7. The wrestlers’ goal will be to peak just after that and do their best.

“After this (weekend), we want to build up and get back to our peak,” Linsacum said. “It’s hard to hold a peak for very long, so if I’m doing my job, we’ll hit it at the right time.”

Contact Nate Waggenspack at 970-875-1795 or nwaggenspack@CraigDailyPress.com.