The top-ranked Douglas High wrestling team put together one of its most impressive performances of the season Wednesday night, sweeping all seven contested matches from South Tahoe in a 66-12 dual match win in Minden.
The win pushed the Tigers' record to 5-0 in Sierra League duals this season setting up a showdown with Carson next Wednesday that will essentially decide the league title.
Douglas recorded pins in five of the contested matches as Patrick Miller (215 pounds, 27 seconds), Tyler Cook (160, 1:13), Justin Freeman (152, 2:40), Eddie Kollar (145, 2:33) and Michael Sepulveda (130, 1:59) put together a string of falls through the middle of the match that saw the Tigers go up 57-0 at one point.
The first and last matches of the night ended up being the most entertaining, both going the distance,
Douglas' Wes Peterson led the night off against Tahoe's Myles Lopez in the 125-pound bracket. Lopez fought off an early attack from Peterson, coming back from what was a sure takedown to get out of the first period with a scoreless tie.
Peterson started with the position advantage in the second period and turned that into a near fall. Lopez scored a reversal just before the buzzer to tie the match up at 2-2, but Peterson spun out of it just as quickly right as the buzzer sounded, taking a 32- lead into the third.
Lopez started the third with the advantage in position and held that until Peterson scored an escape with 30 seconds left for the 4-2 lead. He sealed the win with a takedown at the 15-mark. The 6-2 win gave Douglas an early 3-0 lead in the team standings.
Interspersed between the pins, Douglas claimed forfeit victories from Nick Proteome (135 pounds), Nico Barker (140), Steve Anderson (171) and Zach Falanga (189).
South Tahoe got on the board with forfeit wins from Jon Fago't (285) and Cody Shindelbower (103), setting the evening finale between the Vikings' Cameron Cason and the Tigers' Tim Souza in the 119-pound bout.
Souza took an early lead on a takedown but a Cason escape with 30 seconds left in the first narrowed the gap to 2-1.
Cason took a 3-2 lead on a takedown with 1:17 remaining in the second period but Souza came back with a reversal 13 seconds later to reclaim the lead at 4-3.
Cason started the third with the position advantage but a quick escape from Souza extended his lead to 5-3. Cason scored a takedown less than 10 seconds later to tie it back up at 5-5. Souza escaped just as quickly, retaking the lead at 6-5 but another takedown from Cason tipped the score back to 7-6.
Souza again escaped, tying the score at seven, and put his first offensive points since the first period on the board 20 seconds later with a takedown for the 9-7 lead.
Cason escaped with 21 seconds left and was awarded a point with seven seconds left after Souza was called for stalling, tying the match at nine and sending it to overtime.
Souza scored a takedown 18 seconds in to the overtime period, claiming the 11-9 win.
