PREPS: Carson knocks off Douglas, finishes undefeated in league

MINDEN - After being spotted 30 points because of forfeits, there was little question that the Carson High wrestling team was going to sail to a victory over rival Douglas Wednesday night.

Douglas made it interesting for a while, but in the end the Senators piled up five pins in eight contested matches to take a 60-18 win.

"We felt pretty confident coming in, just because of the numbers," Carson coach Tim McCarthy said. "Unfortunately, Douglas is experiencing what a lot of teams are - the injuries, the illness, just the lack of participation.

"They're doing a good job, but numbers-wise it's really tough for them."

The win pushed Carson to 5-0 in league action to give the Senators the Sierra League title outright. Douglas finished the regular season at 3-2. A Douglas win would have meant a three-way tie for first for the Tigers, Senators and Wooster Colts. The three would have shared the league title.

"We wanted to win the league in duals," McCarthy said. "We don't know if we are the caliber of team to win the regional title. We're maybe still a year away from that. But this was a nice feather in our cap and we plan on performing to the best of our abilities at regionals."

Douglas was in the position of virtually having to score a win by fall in each of the eight contested matches of the night.

Douglas junior Nick Lufrano certainly got the Tigers off on the right foot.

Lufrano opened the dual in the 189-pound class by pinning his opponent in 3:26 to give the Tigers a 6-0 lead.

Forfeits in the 215 (Cody Tucker), heavyweight (Jesse Knight) and 103 (Kyle Sharp) classes quickly pushed Carson ahead 18-6, though.

Pat Craugh scored a lightning-quick pin in just nine seconds in the 112-pound class to give the Senators a 24-6 lead.

That was the only contested bout in the lightweight classes.

"The meat of our lineup is in the lightweights and we had a number of forfeits down there," McCarthy said. "Some of them didn't get to wrestle."

Carson carried a 36-6 lead into the 130-pound match, which pitted Douglas standout Dillon Spates against Carson's Ty Welch.

Welch fended off an early and strong attack from Spates to keep from being pinned. While Spates took a 10-5 decision in the match, Welch avoided the pin which took three potential points off the scoreboard for the Tigers.

"Ty wrestled pretty tough against Spates," McCarthy said. "He had a great match."

Douglas' Parker Hoshizaki and Carson's Andrew Cunningham went back and forth throughout a hard-fought bout in the 135 class.

Trailing 4-3 with 31 seconds left, Hoshizaki scored a takedown and held on to Cunningham through the remainder. Cunningham nearly had an escape that would have tied the match with three seconds left, but Hoshizaki covered over him and held on for the 5-4 decision.

Hoshizaki's win cut Carson's lead to 36-12 with five matches remaining, leaving Douglas within striking distance.

Carson's Jordan Luhrs quickly putting any hopes of a Tiger comeback to an end, though, pinning his opponent in 1:51 at 140 pounds to put Carson up 42-12 and seal the Senator victory.

"We had a feeling with the forfeits, it's just a tough number to come back from," Douglas coach Justin Shine said. "We had nine guys tonight, so that means we were giving up five spots.

"Thirty points is a steep climb back. We would have had to pin just about everyone and how often does that happen in wrestling?"

Carson cleanly swept through the remainder of the contested matches as Cody Cunningham posted a pin in 2:28 at 145, Nico Garcia had a pin in 1:50 at 160 pounds and Aaron Lopez had a pin in 1:14 at 171 pounds to finish off the night.

Douglas' remaining points came from Daniel Lundergreen's forfeit victory at 152 pounds.