RITZVILLE — The Lind-Ritzville/Sprague Broncos fell to the Colfax Bulldogs 53-24 on Wednesday. Despite the loss, Head Coach Jason Hilzer felt his wrestlers still competed hard.   

“I thought we did okay. We knew they had really good wrestlers at 120-lb, 138-lb and 144-lb (weight classes), so we knew that those were going to be tough for us to come out on top. There were some other ones we thought were kind of a coin toss, and we needed to win those in order to win the duel,” Hilzer said.  

Aside from a couple of forfeit wins in favor of the Broncos, they secured two pinfall wins thanks to Gabriel Mungia and Marcial Davis. Colfax earned several pinfall victories Wednesday on their way to an overall duel win. Hilzer noted LRS is down a few wrestlers, which would have been in some of the key matchups.   

“Part of the problem is we have four guys out with either injury or concussion,” Hilzer said. “We were scrambling to make a squad, but we competed well, I think we ran into some tough wrestlers. We competed (good) in both of our heavyweight (matches), they pinned their heavyweight (opponent). We needed to see that for seeding purposes.”  

Hilzer was thrilled to see Mungia earn a pinfall victory Wednesday, as now he keeps his spot at second in the Northeast 2B league. He was glad to see Davis also earn a pinfall victory as he tries to climb the league rankings.   

“It was nice to see them both get wins. We haven't seen some of the teams in the North at Kettle Falls. We haven't seen that wrestler, we haven’t seen the Springdale kid. We've lost to him a couple times, but we've beaten a lot of the other wrestlers in our league,” Hilzer said.  

Coach said he noticed his wrestlers struggling with head and arm positioning, which contributed to multiple pinfalls against the Broncos. He told his assistant coaches that will become a focal point in practices going forward to avoid this issue in future matches.   

“We're going to implement and do more of what we call a spiral ride, or an ankle ride, where we hook the ankle with our foot so it keeps our hips behind, so we can't get too high, and because that's what we're doing, we're getting a little too high, and that's allowing them to hook our head and throw and roll us over,” he said.   

LRS also celebrated seniors Waylon Rosman, Caleb Kirkendall, Cooper Ramos and girls wrestler Jicaela Wade. Though bittersweet, Hilzer always reflects on the bonds he got to create with the wrestlers during their time as a Bronco.   

“You build special bonds with them, and you see how far they’ve come from when they were freshman until they graduate. Sometimes it's more than just losing that wrestler on the wrestling team... that's losing that wrestler around (school), so I think that's what we're going to miss, is with those three guys' leadership and just them being around,” Hilzer said.  

The Broncos will close out their final four regular season duels on the road, starting at Asotin on Jan. 28 at 5 p.m.  

“This is the part of the season where we're really grinding the (wrestling) room,” Hilzer said. “A lot of live wrestling, we'll teach a little bit, but a lot of it's just stopping them when they get in certain positions but letting them wrestle and grind and try to build that stamina so they can go a full eight minutes.”  

RESULTS:   

113: Waylon Rosman (LRS) over Colfax, forfeit  
120: Ty Scott (CLFX) over Cooper Ramos (LRS), Technical Fall 17-2
126: Kingsley Hopkins (CLFX) over Wyatt Gibler (LRS), pinfall
132: Cameron Mathia (CLFX) over Conner Obrien (LRS), pinfall
138: Cooper Phillips (CLFX) over Isaiah Busby (LRS), pinfall
144: Cody Phillips (CLFX) over Moses Mungia (LRS), pinfall
150: Floyd McKeirnan (CLFX) over Landon Segers (LRS), pinfall
157: Braxden Gransbery (CLFX) over Frankie Leyba (LRS), pinfall
165: Joel Burris (CLFX) over Lind-Ritzville/Sprague, forfeit
175: Gabriel Mungia (LRS) over Austin Campbell (CLFX), pinfall
190: Lincoln Johnson (LRS) over Colfax, forfeit
|215: Aero Cai (CLFX) over Lind-Ritzville/Sprague, forfeit
285: Marcial Davis (LRS) over Cooper Watt (CLFX), pinfall

    The Broncos’ Gunner Grimm wrestles an opponent from Ephrata in the Banks Lake Brawl earlier this season. Head Coach Jason Hilzer felt his wrestlers competed hard despite the loss.
  

    Marcial Davis attempts to pin his opponent to the mat during the Banks Lake Brawl earlier this season. Davis earned a pinfall victory in the 285-lb weight class.