SUPERIOR – Despite half the team down, the Superior wrestling team was almost undefeated in their matches at the Ronan Duals last weekend.

Senior Anthony Parkin, 113-pound weight class, and freshman Blaine Parkin, 98-pound weight class, both wrestled in the duals. According to Head Coach Charlie Crabb, Blaine had four opponents while Anthony had five. Blaine won three of his matches and Anthony was undefeated for the weekend.

Crabb was happy with the Parkin brothers’ performances in their respective matches. He felt the two did very well.

Blaine has seen a great deal of improvement and was described as better each week, while Anthony did not have much competition this week, he showed some improvement in his matches as well.

Because this was a dual tournament, there were no brackets. Crabb explained the wrestlers were paired into mixers to wrestle, instead of individual one on one matches against others in a weight class.

“There was no placing,” said Crabb. “It was just to get wrestling done.”

Crabb said the other two members of the Superior team were still down from past injuries. Freshman Tate Trudeau, 105-pound weight class, has been unable to wrestle since the start of the season due to an injury to his ankle from football season. Meanwhile, Bridger Lapierre, 138-pound weight class, received a neck injury just before Christmas break and is still recovering.

Trudeau has been cleared by doctors and is expected to be ready for the matches this week. Lapierre, on the other hand, is expected to be back on the mat in the next week or two and will return as soon as he feels up to wrestling again without feeling pain.

“We’ll have to wait and see how his neck feels,” said Crabb. “His back’s been hurting some too.”

Crabb said he was not in a rush for either wrestler to recover faster. With over a month before divisionals, the team has plenty of time to get back to full strength. The injuries have both been described as fairly minor and are not expected to disqualify anyone from competition.

“None of these injuries are going to keep them off [the mat] or keep them out for the rest of the year,” said Crabb.

In the week before the next match, Crabb said there were no specific areas for the team to work on. He said he would work with the boys to stay in shape and keep skills sharp. The coach said this week’s practices would mostly be to fine-tune the wrestler’s performance.

“We’ve got some cup tournaments coming up, so [we’ll] prepare for those and I’ve got some real high level competition coming, so do the best we can with what we do,” said Crabb.

Superior will have an unscheduled match this week. The team will go to Arlee on Thursday, January 9, to wrestle before the next scheduled match. Crabb said the match was scheduled late and did not make it onto the printed schedule.

The team next match will be on the schedule at Ted Kato in Thompson Falls on Saturday, January 11.