TACOMA -The Othello Huskies boys and girls wrestling team made a strong showing at Mat Classic XXIV Friday and Saturday as the teams finished sixth and 12th respectively. Deer Park won the boys team championship with 154 points. Othello finished with 60.5. The girls team championship was won by Sedro Wooley with 83 points the Huskies tallied 43.

"I thought we could've done better than we did," boys coach Ruben Martinez said. "But our lack of experience with our wrestlers and the low number of qualifiers kind of hurt us."

Isaiah and Anthony Barrera lost their first round matches and had to drop down to the consolation bracket. The brothers faced each other in the second match on Saturday. Anthony won by injury default over Isaiah to knock him out of the competition and went on to finish fifth with a 6-0 win over Andrew Bosch from Woodland.

Lucas Garza (126) finished fourth at the Mat Classic. He beat Victor Toledo from Franklin Pierce in round one on opening day, but lost to Cameron Nolan from Tumwater 6-3 and was bounced out of the championship bracket.

Garza won his next three matches to earn the right to wrestle fro third place, but lost to Nolan for the second time to place fourth.

Eric Garza (152) lost his first two matches and had to watch the rest of the tournament from a different vantage point.

Senior Joey Gomez (220) earned his first state championship after finishing runner up the last two years. He breezed through the semi final round and then put a hurting on CJ Rodriguez, 16-0 to claim top honors in his weight class.

"Joey was finally able to realize his dream and that was nice to see," Martinez said. "I am certain he will go on to wrestle at the colligate level and continue to do well. I wish him all the best."

Huskies girls program

on the rise

TACOMA - The Othello girls wrestling team had a good showing at the state wrestling tournament over the weekend as the team placed 12th out of 104 teams.

"I thought our girls did an amazing job," coach JJ Martinez said. "Our program is only three years old. Four of our six wrestlers are in their first year. And to make history with Tatum (Sparks) and Allesha (Reyes) placing at the Mat Classic is something special."

Sparks (124) placed third at the tournament. She won her first tow matches, but lost to Jennifer Anderson, the eventual state champion from Emerald Ridge, 9-2 and was knocked into the consolation bracket. Sparks beat Mixey Gonzales from Warden 4-2 in the semi-final round, then defeated McKenna Emmert from Kelso, 6-3 to finish third.

Reyes, who has only been wrestling for a year and a half, won her first three matches to earn the right to wrestle for the state championship in her weight class. Unfortunately, she was matched up with defending state champion Katrynia Todd from Auburn who was too much for her to handle and was pinned. But she did take home the second place medal for Othello.Tori Zambrano (106), Julissa Valenciano (112) and Phelicia Perez (137) lost their first two matches and were eliminated from the competition.

"Our girls will be on a mission to finisher higher next year," Martinez said. "Our goal was to place in the top 10 this year, but we just missed out by a few points."