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Wednesday, January 15, 2014 • The South Whidbey Record
Whidbey wrestling struggles with illnesses
Briefly
By BEN WATANABE South Whidbey Record
Ben Watanabe / The Record
South Whidbey Falcon senior Madi Boyd drives past Sultan Turk junior Khayla Mackenzie in the second quarter of the Cascade Conference game Friday, Jan. 10 at South Whidbey High School. The Turks ran away to a 51-22 victory behind a stifling full-court trap defense.
Turks’ trap defense foils Sultan erases 19-point Falcon girls basketball deficit, beats Falcon boys The Sultan Turks stifled the South Whidbey girls basketball team Friday night in a 51-22 win at South Whidbey High School. The Turks held the Falcons to five points in the first half behind a full-court trap defense that forced plenty of turnovers and quick layups. At halftime, Sultan held a 28-5 lead and kept up the pace on offense in the second half. Falcon junior Abby Hodson and freshman Megan Drake tied as the team’s leading scorers at six points each. South Whidbey has yet to win in Cascade Conference play, while the victory boosted Sultan to 3-2 in conference and 4-6 overall.
Leading 60-49 with 9:30 left to play, South Whidbey watched its lead evaporate as Sultan’s boys basketball team went on a 22-0 run into the fourth quarter and held on to win 84-72 on Friday night. Sultan’s defense led the way, forcing turnover after turnover by South Whidbey to rally from the 11-point deficit and surge ahead. South Whidbey committed 19 turnovers in the Cascade Conference game. Falcon junior Parker Collins tied for a game-high 24 points with Sultan’s Giovanni Williams. CJ Sutfin chipped in 15 points and Nick French scored 14 points in his second game this season after rehabilitating an injured left knee.
The victory lifted Sultan to 4-1 in conference play and 7-2 overall. South Whidbey looked to grab a .500 winning percentage against Archbishop Murphy (3-2 conference, 3-8 overall) at home Tuesday before hitting the road against Granite Falls on Friday.
Whidbey Reign rules over Tukwila team The Whidbey Reign U-17 soccer team held off TUSK, a team from the South Seattle areas of TukwilaSkyway, 1-0 on Sunday in a playoff match. Whidbey scored in the second half on a goal by Andy Zisette, set up by a pass from Jeffrey Meier. Reign head coach Terry Swanson SEE REIGN, A9
Postseason matches are only a few weeks away, and the South Whidbey wrestling team got a good look at its upcoming competition. Wrestling in the Sgt. Justin Norton Memorial tournament at Rainier High School on Saturday, South Whidbey finished in 10th place out of 16 teams. It broke the streak of top-three finishes by the Falcons in each of the three tournaments, but head coach Jim Thompson hopes it sent an important message to wrestlers. “These are the guys you gotta beat to get to state,” he said. After a dual meet two days earlier against Sultan, Thompson was upset with the way many of the Falcons wrestled. They struggled with escaping, keeping their weight low and finishing a takedown. There were a few matches in that showdown where South Whidbey’s wrestlers failed to score a point. Against myriad opponents, many ranked in their WIAA classifications by washingtonwrestlingreport.com, the Falcons rose up and won at least one match. “I was OK because I didn’t have anybody go two and out, which was pretty nice,” Thompson said of the Norton Memorial, later adding that the Falcons had plenty of improvement ahead of them, including escaping holds. “Guys were getting ridden out for close to two periods.” South Whidbey’s top finisher was senior Jose Chavez
in the 182. In the first round, he defeated Kalama sophomore Spencer Richardson with a pin in 40 seconds. After a second-round bye, Chavez was defeated 5-1 by Castle Rock senior Chase Lam. Chavez won his final bout in the consolation bracket 10-5 against Kalama sophomore Carl Hausserman. Four other South Whidbey wrestlers finished in fifth place, including a bout in the 160-pound class that pitted Falcon against Falcon. Seniors Kyrell Broyles, the team’s varsity 160-pound wrestler, and James Itaya battled in the consolation bracket. In a bit of an upset, Itaya emerged with a 4-3 victory over Broyles from what was a light-hearted match between friends. “We were just joking around and laughing,” Itaya said of grappling with Broyles, only the second time they have faced off in a match. Trevor Miller, a Falcon junior, benefited from a smaller field in the 220-pound class to a fifth-place finish. He quickly pinned Tenino’s Riley Noonan in 39 seconds. The second match proved more difficult, as Miller faced Rochester junior Matt Shields, ranked sixth in 1A. Thompson said Miller had a shot at finishing a takedown, but was rolled and pinned by Shields in 5:02. Two Falcons battled not only other wrestlers, but illnesses as well. Andy Madsen, a 152-pound senior, recovSEE WRESTLING, A9
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