Area Sports

Sequim’s Winton Babb looks for a way to keep control of North Mason’s Brian McCarty in an Olympic League match earlier this season. Sequim Gazette photo by Michael Dashiell

Sequim Gazette staff

For the first time in 15 seasons, no Sequim wrestler can call the Tacoma Dome their home-away-from-home.

The Wolves found the competition at Saturday’s regional tournament tough to handle, finishing ninth out of nine teams and putting just six athletes on the medal stand for their top-six finishes.

Two Sequim boys — Clay Charley at 215 pounds and Brian Bearden at 285 pounds — just missed state berths with fourth-place finishes. The two, plus Amariah Clift, who finished seventh in her weight class at a regional all-girls tourney in Puyallup, are state tourney alternates.

Derek Fruin (119 pounds) and Mustang Riggins (140) both went 2-2 and placed fifth in Tacoma while Austin Middleton (125 pounds) and Luke Mooney (130) went 1-3 and placed sixth.

There is plenty of hope for this young Wolves squad. Nine of the 11 Wolves competing at regionals Saturday afternoon are underclassmen (freshmen or sophomores).

The last Wolves squad to fail to advance a grappler to MatClassic was the 1994-1995 squad, when lightweight Tommy Bell finished fifth at regionals and went to state as an alternate. Bell placed sixth at state the next year as the Wolves put together seven consecutive years of state medalists (top-eight at state).