Boulder City rolls to Southern League crown

By Brent Hinckley

Saturday, Feb. 7, 2009 | 6:55 p.m.

With seven wrestlers picking up individual 3A Southern League titles, Boulder City High easily captured the 2009 league tournament held in Boulder City on Saturday.

The Eagles scored 222 points to best Virgin Valley, which took second place with 160 points. Moapa Valley was third with 140 and Faith Lutheran took fourth with 64.5 points.

"It's been a long time since we've had one of these," Eagles' coach Kevin Ruth said. "The kids did a great job."

In addition to the seven champions, the Eagles picked up three second-place finishes, five third-place finishes and qualified 16 wrestlers overall for the 3A state tournament, Feb. 14 in Winnemucca. Ruth said this will be the largest group of wrestlers he has taken to the state tournament.

"Everyone's going to have four or five tough individuals, but it's those next 10 that can score points, is where it's won at," Ruth said.

Leading the way will be junior Allen Haines (130) who picked up his third region championship -- two at 130 pounds and one at 125 pounds his freshman year. Haines needed just 54 seconds to pin Virgin Valley freshman Jade Henson in the tournament.

"This one feels just as good as the last one. Being the team champion is almost better than the one I won myself," Haines said.

Junior Steven Kaposta (152) and Jake Thormodsgaard (171) were both runners up last season, but broke through to win region titles this year.

"I love this feeling — this is awesome," Thormodsgaard said. "I'm a lot more confident for state now, and I'm really looking forward to getting on that podium next week."

Thormodsgaard won his match against Moapa Valley's Derik Parkinson by pinfall, 21 seconds into the second period. The Eagles won six of their matches by pinfall, including Kaposta who pinned Moapa Valley's Jeremie Sprague with 1:17 left in the second.

"Going into it, I was nervous. I came up short last year," Kaposta said. "I finally came through and got everything off my back."

Boulder City's other winners were Johnny Garcia (125), who won by decision 11-3, and Spencer Sasarita (145), who won by pinfall with 7.2 seconds left in the second period. Freshman Frankie Badgely (160) defeated teammate Shane Joseph by pinfall at 1:01 in the second and Kyle Erickson (285) won by decision 2-1 against Virgin Valley's D'Andre Matthews.

"The kids did a great job, but I knew we were going to win. We'll enjoy this for now, but tomorrow we'll start getting ready for out next goal," coach Jim Cox said.

Brent Hinckley can be reached at 990-7822 or [email protected].