Three Buffaloes, one Cowboy reach finals at Best of the West tournament in Tooele

Eleven Tooele High School wrestlers placed in the top six of their respective weight classes at Tooele’s own Best of the West tournament Friday and Saturday. The successful individual performances were good enough to give Tooele a second-place finish with 183.5 points against 16 other teams. Two of the 11 top finishers from THS were junior varsity wrestlers.

“We feel really good about placing so high in this tournament, there were a lot of great wrestlers here this weekend. Hosting the tournament itself was a lot of work, but it was very successful,” said Tooele coach Gary Coffman.

The finals were held at about 5 p.m. on Saturday and Tooele’s main gym was packed with fans.

Wrestling power Delta High School won an astounding 10 weight classes to finish in first place as a varsity team and third-place as a junior varsity team. In the 119-pound division, a Delta junior varsity wrestler defeated a teammate varsity wrestler to win a championship.

Leading the way for Tooele was undefeated Monte Schmalhaus who finished first in the 160-pound division. Schmalhaus won four matches over the weekend with three falls and a 7-1 decision over Delta’s Zach Oppenheimer in the championship.

“I wrestled the same guy from Delta down at the tournament at Dixie High; he’s good,” Schmalhaus said. “I pinned him the first time we wrestled.”

Oppenheimer is a top wrestler with a 20-3 record with two of those losses to Schmalhaus. The two will not have to face each other in the state tournament because Delta is 3A and Tooele is 4A.

“My goal is to win another state title this year and then move on to wrestle in college,” the THS grappler said.

Schmaulhaus is the defending 4A state champion at 160.

Then on Monday Schmalhaus was paired against Jed Craner from Fremont at the All-Star Wrestling Classic at Utah Valley University. Both wrestlers are among the top five in the state at 160 pounds among all Utah schools. Schmalhaus stayed unbeaten with an 8-1 decision over Craner. With the victory his record improves to 23-0 with 18 pins.

Tooele’s Jake Golden at 125 and Chris Heaps at 135 both reached championship matches, but lost by decisions to Delta wrestlers in the title bouts.

Golden won three matches en route to the championship with a fall and two decisions. He lost by decision in the championship match, and runs his record to 20-3 on the season.

Heaps cruised through the first two rounds with falls and battled to a decision victory over 19-5 Jordan Calaway of Dixie in the semi-finals to reach the championship match against Delta.

Grantsville’s Austin Vickers (152) also earned a spot in a championship match winning two matches by falls and a semi-final match by decision. He also lost to a Delta wrestler in the finals who is now 20-2 on the season. Vickers improve his record to 13-2 on the year.

Tooele’s Thomas Manning (145), Mason Burbidge (215) and Joel Spendlove (285) all finished in third place.

Manning runs his record to 18-5 on the season, Burbidge improves to 14-8 and Spendlove is now 19-4 on the year.

Austin Hansen (152) pinned his first two opponents and then ran into eventual tourney champ Jordan Sorensen of Delta in the semi-finals. Hansen’s effort earned a fourth-place finish. Hansen is 17-5 on the year.

Two Tooele junior varsity wrestlers also finished in fourth place. Gaide Harding (112) ran his record to 15-10 on the year and captured fourth place, and Koleton Kroeger (160) ran his record to 15-7 and placed fourth.

Jake Prather (112) and Michael Trujillo (130) of Tooele both placed fifth at the tourney.

Prather defeated Grantsville freshman Kaylon Vickers in the second round and then lost to tourney champion Chason Tolbert of Delta. He then fell to teammate Gaide Harding. Kaylon Vickers went on to pin Carbon’s Kamas Anderson before dropping out of the tournament.

Trujillo won his first match and then lost to Samuel Williamson of Grantsville in the second round. Trujillo stayed alive in the tournament and won by forfeit over Williamson on Saturday in a fifth-sxith place match.

Coming through with sixth-place finishes for the Cowboys were Williamson (130) and Toby Martinez (145).

Wlliamson defeated Riverton’s Alix Ipsen to start the tournament and then downed Trujillo of Tooele. Williamson then lost two matches to Delta wrestlers and forfeited to Trujillo.

Martinez opened the tournament with a major decision over Copper Hills’s Scott Monson and then dropped a match to Delta’s Justin Christiansen. He then prevailed over Carbon’s Nico Velasquez to earn the sixth spot.

Final team standings: 1. Delta varsity, 2. Tooele varsity, 3. Delta junior varsity, 4. Cyprus, 5. Carbon, 6. Dixie varsity, 7. Riverton, 8. Kearns, 9. Clearfield, 10. East, 11. Grantsville, 12. Copper Hills, 13. Tooele junior varsity, 14. Bonneville, 15. Piute, 16. Dixie junior varsity.

Mark Watson: mwatson@tooeletranscript.com