Trio of Senator champs for CHS

RENO — Carson High struck gold three times at Saturday’s NIAA Regional Wrestling Championships.

Brady O’Keefe (145), Nolan Shine (160) and Brady Rivera (220) all walked away with individual titles en route to qualifying for next week’s state meet in Winnemucca. For Shine and Rivera, it was their second consecutive regional title.

Two other CHS wrestlers, Brandon Basa (113) and Sheldon Miller (heavyweight) also advanced, placing second and third, respectively.

As a team, Carson finished fourth with 154 points. Spanish Springs won with 191.5 followed by Reno at 169.5 and Damonte Ranch 168.

Carson failed to get any points at 138 because Hector Perez failed to make weight and Jarod Butler had a skin issue. Pretty tough to challenge for a title when you go empty in two weight classes.

“We had a good tournament,” Carson coach Paul Carter said. “We had four kids in the finals, and we have three champions. It was a great job by our guys.”

O’Keefe barely worked up a sweat en route to his title. He pinned Nathan Thom of Damonte Ranch in 82 seconds, and then stopped Wooster’s Christian Hanly in 60 seconds in the title match.

“I pinned him (Thom) in the second round the last time we wrestled,” O’Keefe said. “The last time I wrestled him, I was just trying to practice; work on things. The last time I wrestled Hanly I pinned him in 27 seconds. I thought it would be pretty easy.”

“Brady wrestled great,” Carter said. “I think he pinned everybody he wrestled this weekend.”

While O’Keefe breezed, Shine had a tougher road, and tougher matches.

In the semis, he squeezed out a 2-1 decision over Reno’s Devyn Cox, and followed that up with a 3-2 win over Damonte’s Drake McAdow in the finals. The semifinal match was expected to be a defensive-minded battle, and Shine stayed in that mode for the championship match.

After a scoreless first period, Cox worked an escape for a 1-0 lead in the second period. Shine went for a takedown, but the official ruled the wrestlers were out of bounds. With a little more than a minute left in the match, Shine worked a reversal on Cox for a 2-1 lead, and he was able to control Cox the rest of the way.

“That was huge,” Carter said. “That was probably our biggest win (before the finals).”

In the finals, Shine got a first-period takedown for a quick 2-0 lead. He yielded an escape later in the first period that made it 2-1. Shine got an escape to make it 3-1 in the third period before allowing a third-period escape.

“It feels great (to repeat),” Shine said. “This was my goal since I lost in the state finals last year. I haven’t felt that good lately, so I wrestled a little conservatively to save my strength. I wanted to wrestle smart.”

“He likes to wrestle that way (defensive oriented),” Carter said. “He feels comfortable doing it that way. He did a great job.”

Rivera wrestled just twice, pinning Arnell Laport in 68 seconds in the semis, and knocking off Douglas’ Zach Singer, 7-2, in the championship match. It was Rivera’s fourth straight win over Singer this year.

Rivera built an early 3-0 lead, getting a takedown at the end of the first period and an escape in the second period. Singer made it 3-2 with a reversal in the first 30 seconds of the final period. Rivera worked an escape and takedown to make it 6-2. He would later pick up an extra point when Singer was called for stalling.

Rivera said the fact he and Singer have wrestled so often may have worked against him.

“He knows how I wrestle,” Rivera said. “I just wanted to win. I don’t think I wrestled well. I didn’t finish my shots. It’s great to win again, and a state championship would be better.”

Basa was dominant in his 8-0 semifinal win over Hayden Bosco of Spanish Springs.

“I felt great,” Basa said. “I felt like I was in control the entire way. I felt I redeemed myself because I won by just two points last week when I wrestled him at Placer.”

That win sent Basa against an old nemesis, Ian Timmins of Wooster, the defending state champ. Basa fell behind 6-0 and was pinned with 24 seconds left in the second round.

“Brandon had a good tournament,” Carter said. “He was third last year at zone and this year he was second, so he made some progress. Timmins is a tough wrestler.”

Miller, Carson’s quickly improving sophomore heavyweight, lost a 4-3 overtime decision to Spanish Springs’ Conner Hendriks. The match was tied at 2 after regulation. Neither wrestler scored in the first overtime, and then Miller escaped in the first 30-second OT period to take a 3-2 lead. Hendriks evened the match when he was awarded a penalty point when Miller shoved him out of bounds which tied the match at 3. He then got an escape for a 4-3 win.

Miller dropped into the consolation bracket and pinned Ian Pieller with 47 seconds left in the second round. That set up a rather bizarre match against Reno’s Charles Tuavao, a huge freshmen, who outweighed Miller by 50 pounds.

Miller was unfazed. After a scoreless first period, Tuavao, who was nursing an elbow injury, was penalized a point for an open-handed slap in Miller’s face. When the two tumbled hard to the mat for a second time, Tuavao was again penalized a point. At that point, the match was stopped for an injury default.

The fun was just beginning, however.

The Carson fans appeared to be taking their anger out on Tuavao for his shots on Miller, who remained amazingly calm. Several Reno fans ran toward the Carson rooting section, and security had to rush over to keep things in check. It was a bizarre ending to a bizarre match.

“I thought I handled it pretty well,” Miller said.

“I could tell he was getting frustrated.”

“I’m very pleased with Sheldon,” Carter said. “He’s starting to figure it out. Their guy is a big freshman without experience. Emotions were high all around.”

Two other Carson wrestlers — Terin Keller (106) and Abel Carter (170) — barely missed moving on. Both finished fourth.

Keller won his first consolation match by pin and then won 10-8 before being pinned by Spanish Springs’ Cody Jones in the third-place match. Abel Carter also won twice, 8-5 and 14-5, before being pinned in his third-place match.

Coach Carter was ecstatic to see two of his freshmen get all the way to the third-place match. It bodes well for the future.