By Mike Maltais
The Liberty Bell High School varsity wrestlers used the holiday break to reinforce the claim that the defending state champions remain the team to watch and to beat this season.
If there is a venue to support that notion, it is the annual Tri-State Wrestling Tournament held annually at North Idaho College in Coeur D’Alene.
The Mountain Lions sent state champions Emmett Fink, Trent Skelton and Meritt Fink to the Tri-State throw-down on Dec. 18–19 while the remainder of the team attended the concurrent North Okanogan Holiday Invitational (NOHI) at Oroville.
The 36th annual Tri-State is billed as the longest continually running wrestling tournament in the Northwest. It’s also the toughest, attracting teams from high schools in the four-state block area of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana. At Tri-State, a wrestler takes on all comers in his weight class, regardless of school size from 5A on down. Among them are many state champions and champs-in-waiting. Consequently there are wrestlers who do not win their division at Tri-State but go on to win their weight class at state.
Facing a roster of more than 500 wrestlers from 73 other schools, the trio of Mountain Lions turned in its best performance in LBHS history, placing 30th out of 74 schools. Liberty Bell racked up 48.5 team points to finish between Royal with 49.3 and Deer Park with 47.
Emmett Fink finished third in the 145-pound bracket when he pinned Tonasket’s Jorge Juarez in 2 minutes, 21 seconds. Skelton quickly dispatched Tahoma opponent, Nick Whitehead, by a 38-second pin at 120 pounds.
Meanwhile the rest of the team placed fifth with 95.5 points at NOHI behind Kittitas, Kettle Falls, Okanogan, and Tonasket.
Royal rumbles
At The Royal Christmas Tournament on Dec. 30, the Mountain Lions scored 128 points among 18 schools to finish sixth behind Chewelah, Warden, Ephrata, Castle Rock and Royal.
Both Fink brothers and Skelton placed first in their weight classes, while Jacob McMillan and Dreyton Acord each finished second.
Skelton defeated Royal’s Carlos Hernandez, 1-0, at 126 pounds.
Meritt Fink was a 5-0 winner over Adrian Toscano at 145 pounds.
Emmett Fink was too much for Castle Rock’s Shawn Godinho with an 8-2 win at 152 pounds.
McMillan fell, 16-3, to Quenton Smith of Chewelah for second place.
Acord finished second to Warden’s Mikey Hernandez, 6-2.
The Mountain Lions will be at The Evergreen State College on Friday and Saturday (Jan. 9–10), to participate in the Gut Check Challenge.
