Develon Isom
For The Spectrum & Daily News
11:33 AM, Dec. 11, 2011
| HURRICANE - The Desert Hills Thunder wrestling team finished off an outstanding second week of mat action by outwrestling eight other schools in Hurricane on Saturday. Thunder wrestlers earned five first-place wins and four second-place finishes to win the fourth Tiger Style Open tournament.
Desert Hills Coach Warren Richins was visibly proud of what his talented team accomplished.
"We've had a lot of second places in tournaments the last few years," he said. "This is actually our first time taking first as a team in a tournament. We're feeling pretty happy about it."
Brandon Parry got the Thunder winning started with his 113-pound division win against Virgin Valley's Hunter Woods. He is beginning his first varsity season in good fashion and his coach is taking note.
"At 113 [lbs], Brandon Parry had some tough matches and he had to gut them out," said Richins. "He really showed heart, showed guts, and won a couple matches that were really tough on him. And, he remains undefeated this season as a sophomore."
Desert Hills' other first place finishers were James Suwyn (132 lbs), Devan Webb (138), Kevan Webb (160) and Kalob Stevenson (285). The five wins totaled a 360-point team performance, 121 points ahead of second-place team Hurricane (239). Richins' team was coming off a Thursday duel win at Snow Canyon in the 'Grapple For the Gold' and the team showed continued high-effort at the Hurricane tournament which began on Friday.
"I'm not surprised that our team is doing well but I am pleased with how our underclassmen have stepped it up, worked hard over the summer and got better," said Richins. "You lose good seniors and you need new guys to step up and fill in what the veterans provided. We are getting that effort.
"We have a pretty darn solid line-up."
Host Hurricane secured some quality hardware too. Josh Pettus and Zach Prince won 'Outstanding Wrestler' awards further supporting their distinguished prep careers.
Pettus is the 3A No.1 ranked 106-pounder and wrestled a highly regarded opponent to win his division. Pettus and Desert Hills' Joe Mondragon (No. 3 in the state) put on a show with their overtime battle, but when it was over, the veteran Pettus came out on top.
"What those two kids do is really good for the region," Richins said. "Obviously we wished their match would have gone the other way. That could be a state championship match and it was fun to see them match up this early in the season.
"Those two are both studs and they've been going at it since little league, each one winning off and on. This one came down to overtime-anybody's match."
Dixie High senior Josh Batin also continued his undefeated season start by winning the 195-pound division, his second tournament win in as many weeks. He said he tried some new moves this weekend.
"Just today I added a new outside-single," said Batin. "A buddy taught me the move here and I used it-it worked."
Devan Webb of Desert Hills (138 lbs) is 12-0 and kept a goose egg on his record too by winning an 8-6 decision over Virgin Valley's Broc Smith.
A Desert Hills or Hurricane wrestler won nine of the 14 divisions and with the Thunder's first ever tournament win coming on Hurricane mats, the quality of the two team's competitive fire increased.
"We have some good young wrestlers coming up and so do they," said Hurricane Coach Kerry Prince. "We have respect for each other and that's a good thing. There will be some good individual rivalries within the natural team rivalry."
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