The Guthrie wrestling program continues its dominating ways in dual action this season.
The third ranked BlueJays took advantage of seven forfeits and cruised to a 68-5 win in El Reno. Guthrie improves to 4-0 in dual action with wins now over El Reno, Capitol Hill, Southeast and Kingfisher.
Up next for the Jays will be a home dual with Western Heights (Thursday) and the Carl Albert Tournament (Friday) before the much-anticipated dual next week (Thursday) with Deer Creek with the winner moving on to dual state.
Watch six of the Guthrie-El Reno dual matches on the wrestling home page. Listen to the interview following the dual with assistant coach Justin Stevens.
Freshmen Alex Nelson (106 pounds) started the night off on the mat and needed just two periods to collect a major decision (15-0) over the Indians Michael Fisher.
El Reno’s Kalini Gradle picked up the teams lone win with a 16-1 major decision over Forrest Stenger.
The O’Connor twins stamped their win in the score book, but took different paths. Austin O’Connor (132 pounds) pinned Dominique Richey with 16.4 seconds left in the first period. Meanwhile, Timothy O’Connor (126 pounds) needed all three periods to collect a 6-0 win in a match he controlled the entire six minutes.
Justin Ball set the tone early in his 138 pound match with Wiley Hokett by jumping out to a quick 2-0 lead and then a 5-0 lead after the first period. Ball built an 9-0 second period lead before winning the match at 13-0.
Defending state champion Bryan Dutton wrestled up at 152 and had no problems with Elisha Leonnard. Dutton allowed all four escape points and finished with a 19-4 major decision.
In the final match of the evening, Guthrie’s Andrew Toney and Murdock Marcum had the dual of the night at 182 pounds. Toney took a 4-0 lead into the third period and need all four with Marcum picking up a take down and scored an escape in the final seconds, but was not enough as Toney picked up the win.
Picking up forfeits for Guthrie was Hunter Betchan, Jared Ball, Devin Bilyeu, Travis Hudson, Conner Howard, Landry Chappell and John Davidson.
Guthrie 68, El Reno 5
Wow! I guess Randall is out as coach of El Reno? What a drastic turn that program has taken in the last 10-15 years.
You’re correct Trey – he left several seasons ago. Seven forfeits for a 5A school is not good. Not sure if injuries are involved, but the numbers are definitely down in El Reno.
Someone with some money needs to come in and do some work to that town in general. I drove through it a few months ago and, damn, it looks like a dump. Just worn down. Not surprised they’re slipping in most athletics. I haven’t been to the school in a while, but I’ve heard it’s looking pretty rough.
But 7 forfeits!?! Heck, that’s 42 points! I’m not sure how many weight classes there are in duals now (there were only 13 when I wrestled), so back in the day even if you had 6 pins in your other matches there was no way to come back from that.
There are now 14 weight classes.
So they could tie with 7 other pins? EXCELLENT!!! 😉