FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2015
THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS — 9
District
BB
Tournament
(
Boys Continued from Page 8)
7-1A District Tournament Brackets
Boys
Echo
Thurs.
8:15 PM
TBA
Pine-Eagle
Fri.
2:45 PM
Joseph
Thurs.
1:45 PM
Powder Valley
Sat.
8:15 PM
Sat.
2:45 PM
Third
Place
Fri.
8:15 PM
Nixyaawii
Girls
Wallowa
Thurs.
6:30 PM
TBA
Powder Valley
Fri.
1:00 PM
Echo
Thurs.
Noon
Griswold
Other Sports
Fri.
6:30 PM
Nixyaawii
Sat.
6:30 PM
Sat.
1:00 PM
Third
Place
BHS wrestling sets new school record
Submitted by
Brandon Young
Baker Wrestling set a
new school record Sat-
urday with 10 wrestlers
qualifying for state, the
most ever sent by Baker to
the state tournament. The
old record set in 2003 was
eight.
We also sent eight to
state in 2010 my first
year as head coach for the
Bulldogs.
This team’s dedication
and work ethic has resulted
in the most improvement
by a team that I have ever
coached!
Everyone on the team
has someone that pushes
them. Good practice
partners are so important
in wrestling. We also have
five wrestlers who are in
line to win the Iron Man
Award started by Coach
Torrey Roberts last season.
They can miss no more
than one practice all season
and they get the Iron Man
Award. This is a great
group of young men with
an excellent leader as their
captain to help show them
the way, Peter Baker.
Saturday wasn’t our best
performance of the season,
with many of our wrestlers
entering as the 2nd seed,
and having the expectation
that some of our 3rd and
4th seeds knocking off the
top two seeds. But, we
were only able to get five
wrestlers to the finals.
It was good to see how
our kids would respond to
not reaching their ultimate
goal of becoming a District
Champion. Even though
it wasn’t our best perfor-
mance, we can’t get too
greedy. We hit an obstacle
and we were able to over-
come it.
In the team race La-
Grande and Baker just did
not have enough numbers.
Ontario and Mac-Hi had
several kids taking 5th or
6th place which adds up a
lot of team points.
Ten out of our 12 kids
finished in the top three of
their weight class and we
had one fourth, and one
fifth. In a small tourn -
ment like this our only
shot at winning is for most
of our team to make the
finals, which is a definit
challenge.
Marco Vela was our
lone champion pinning his
way through the tourna-
ment! In the finals he had
built a 7-0 lead when he
got thrown to his back and
was nearly pinned, but he
fought out of it and was
able to secure the fall later
in the match and overcome
the close call despite giv-
ing us all a couple of extra
grey hairs.
It was pure heart that
enabled Marco to fight o f
his back!
Submitted Photo
At top, wrestler Marco Vela of BHS, new District Champion, 138 lbs.