Cole Energy: Ashton’s pin gives Carson High win over Douglas High

It became appropriate the Sierra League title for the Carson High wrestling team came down to the “math kid” on the squad.

Carson trailed 39-24 going into its last three matches against Douglas in the showdown for the league title on Wednesday at Carson High’s Morse Burley Gym. So the Senators needed no worse than two pins and a major victory if they had any chance of claiming a share of the league title with the Tigers.

The Senators got a little more than that thanks to Cole Ashton, a senior, who ended his regular season career at CHS with a win by pin at 171 pounds to give Carson a 42-39 win. CHS claimed a share of the league title with Douglas as both teams finished 4-1.

Ashton was given the chance to come through with his heroics thanks to Izayah Pando at 152 and Alex Wells at 160, who both won by pin to pull Carson to within 39-36.

“I’m the math kid on the team,” Ashton said. “I was calculating out the score. I knew it was going to rest on me for league. I’ve never had a feeling like this in sports.”

Ashton added about how he felt when the official slammed his hand to the mat, signaling pin: “I just knew it was that we won league. I knew it was the most success I’ve had in my sports. This is definitely the highlight of my sports career.

“I knew it was up to me. There was a lot of pressure, I’ll be honest. I was nervous. But I did it.”

Carson coach Nick Redwine was also doing the math in his head going into the last three matches. “We needed pin, pin, major to win it,” he said. “And we got pin, pin, pin.”

The match began with a bang as the first contest featured two of the state’s best wrestlers in Carson’s David Remer and the Tigers Chad Singer at 195. Remer has been wrestling at 195 all year, but has moved down to 182 where he will wrestle at the Northern 4A Championships, and he moved up to 195 to face Singer.

Remer led 4-0 early in the second period when the turning point of the match came when Remer sustained a calf injury. Remer was able to continue but Singer took control of the match, building an 8-4 lead late in the final period. Remer did everything he could to avoid a pin and save three points but Singer won by pin — with one second left in the match.

Even though Remer was hurt and moved up a weight, Redwine said that didn’t take anything away from Singer’s win. “He wrestled a great match,” said Redwine about Singer.

The Tigers’ Gabriel Foster followed with a win by pin at 220 and then Sawyer Gonzalez beat Kenneth Bogle 3-0 at heavyweight to give Douglas a 15-6 lead.

Luis Mayoral won by pin at 120 and Max Harris won by pin at 132 to pull CHS to within 27-24. Douglas went back up 39-24 when Byron Fair won by pin at 145.

“Always to the last match,” said Douglas assistant head coach Dart Johnson about the rivalry contest going down to the wire. “Chad had a great match. We had a bunch of kids that had great matches. Carson just came out on top tonight.”

Both Carson and Douglas are confident teams heading into the zone championships to be held on Feb. 1 and 2 at Hug. “I’m confident with this team,” Johnson said. “They gave us a good standard of what we need to work on for regionals.”

Redwine said he has a goal for a large number of his wrestlers to qualify for state. “I’m hoping six, seven qualifiers,” said Redwine about how many of his wrestlers he thinks can make it to state. “That might be wishful thinking, but that’s what we’re hoping for.”

As far as Wednesday, Redwine summed up the night by saying, “that was fun.”