Kamiakin dominates on way to 3A district wrestling title

From start to finish, the Kamiakin Braves had themselves quite a day Saturday at the Mid-Columbia Conference 3A district wrestling tournament.

Freshman Austin Almaguer won a title at 106 pounds, and senior Nick Little did the same at 285 as the Braves crowned eight champions to win the team title with 383 points at Kamiakin High School.

“We underperformed,” Kamiakin coach Jordan Anderson said. “We have some guys that wish they could wrestle all over again. This is the not the end of the journey. We want to continue this for the next two weeks.”

The top four wrestlers in each weight class advance to the 3A regional tournament next weekend at Hanford High School. The Braves will send 21 to regionals, where they will compete against the Greater Spokane League, the KingCo League and the Greater St. Helens League.

“It’s nice to have that number and see them perform at the level they did,” Anderson said. “We had eight champions, but we could have had more.”

Southridge finished second in the team standings with 271.5 points, while Hanford (243.5) was third and Kennewick (90) fourth.

Kamiakin sophomore Riley Gurr wasted no time in winning his second district title, pinning Hanford’s Glenn Siekawitch in 54 seconds at 113 pounds.

“I felt really confident and ready to go,” said Gurr, who is 37-0 with 28 pins this season. “When you concentrate on your own match and nothing else, your team will win because of that.”

Braves freshman Sione Halo captured his first district title at 145 pounds, beating Kennewick’s Alex Ramos 7-6 in a close match.

Ramos led 4-1 early in the second round, and he had a 4-2 lead going into the third.

Halo chose the down position to start the third and quickly got a reversal to tie the score at 4. Ramos earned a reversal with 46 seconds to go in the match for a 6-4 lead, but Halo wasn’t done.

He escaped Ramos’ grasp to pull to within 6-5. Then, with 27 seconds left, he took Ramos down and controlled him the remainder of the match.

“I realized he was starting to get tired,” Halo said. “It was time to go, or I would lose the match. I knew it would be a good match, a tough match. Those are the ones that make you good.”

At 170 pounds, Southridge’s Zayid Al-Ghani took the mat against Kamiakin’s Zach Borisch in a highly anticipated match.

After a scoreless first round in which each wrestler was given a stalling warning, Borisch earned an escape 13 seconds into the second round, only to have Al-Ghani record a takedown with 45 seconds remaining in the round for a 2-1 lead.

Taking the down position to start the third, Al-Ghani registered an escape 37 seconds in and held on for the win.

“The first round, I was going to see what he would do so I could set up my shots,” said Al-Ghani, who picked up his second district title. “He was coming at me. He’s a tough wrestler.”

It was just the fourth loss of the season for Borisch.

“It was entertaining. It was exciting,” Anderson said. “Zayid is a great kid. Hopefully we will see him again next week.”

Hanford had two champions on the day — Austin Dreyer at 195 pounds and freshman Jonathan Burt at 220.

Burt had a 2-0 lead over Riley Lopez of Southridge after the first round, then took off from there en route to a 13-5 victory.

“I expected the match to be close at the end,” Burt said. “He beat me the first time we wrestled. This was so much fun. It really feels good.”

The Southridge Suns, last year’s champions, had three winners: Al-Ghani, Xavier Velasco (120) and Cesar Flores (126).

Kennewick’s lone champion was sophomore Emilio Ramos at 138. He won the 126 title last year.

This story was originally published February 6, 2016 at 9:44 PM with the headline "Kamiakin dominates on way to 3A district wrestling title."