WRESTLING: PA’s Gale, Basden win subregional titles

PORT ANGELES — Boys and girls teams from more than 40 high schools competed at a mini-Mat Classic on Friday and Saturday as Port Angeles, with help from Sequim, opened up the postseason by hosting both the boys Class 2A Subregional 2 and the all-classification Girls Subregional 2.

Three North Olympic Peninsula wrestlers earned sub regional championships and a total of 10 wrestlers advanced to boys and girls regional slated Saturday.

Port Townsend’s lone girls entrant, Brenna Franklin, earned two wins by pin over wrestlers from Sub Regional champ White River as well as Fife. Franklin picked up the sub regional title via injury default.

She will wrestle next week at the Girls Regional in Decatur.

Daniel Basden of Port Angeles claimed the boys 120-pound title, earning an 11-0 major decision victory against Will Slaton of Liberty (Issaquah).

The Roughriders’ Riley Gale won at 170 with a 7-1 decision against Isaac Cuevas-Lopez of Bremerton.

In total, Port Angeles will send seven boys wrestlers plus four alternates to the regional tournament at North Mason. The top four placers at the regional meet advance to Mat Classic, the state wrestling tournament at the Tacoma Dome Feb. 15-16.

“Every coach wants above and beyond and we were close,” Roughriders coach Rob Gale said of his team’s performance. “I thought we did really well. It’s a young team and we have a lot of freshman and sophomore wrestlers that are moving on as alternates.”

Basden thoroughly controlled his 120-pound finals match.

“He wrestled very well to get that No. 1 spot,” Gale said. “He’s quick, he can pretty much win about 95 percent of the scrambles, and in wrestling its good to win those scrambles. He did that in the finals today, he was able to get out of a couple scrambles and came out on the winning end of it.”

Gale was happily surprised with the outcome of his son Riley’s 170-pound match given the quality of opponent.

“We thought it would be a one-point match,” Rob Gale said. “This [Cuevas-Lopez] wrestled at 195 against North Kitsap and then wrestled 182 against us and got a major decision against Jason Kibe [Jr.] who is a good wrestler for us.”

Gale only allowed a 1-point escape with the advantage to open the third period, wrestling a clean match and never allowing Cuevas-Lopez much chance to get any offense going.

The Riders also had two runner-up finishes: Grant Abrams was pinned at 2:42 of his 152-pound match and Dom Timperio was pinned at 33 seconds at 195.

Port Angeles also had three wrestlers rebound from losses and win their consolation brackets to take third place — Adam Borde (126); Jackson Larson (145) and Kibe at 182.

“That shows they were able to mentally stay in it,” Gale said. So, yes, that’s huge for us.”

Port Angeles’ alternates to regionals are Carlos Rodriguez (106), Gavin DeVore (145), Miles Wait (160) and Leslie Worthey (220).

The Riders finished third as a team with 214 points.

North Mason won the boys regional with 315 points.

White River was the girls team champion with 245 points.

Sequim will send one wrestler apiece to the boys and girls regionals.

Noah Eveland (285) placed third for the Wolves and Aleah Chen posted a third-place finish at 145.

“Both of them won by pin which was kind of surprising,” Sequim coach Rich Hay said. “Some of the wrestlers you think are going to come through don’t and sometimes the ones who do are a bit of a pleasant surprise.”

The Wolves had two potential alternates, Zach Koch and Logan Laxson injury default in their fifth and sixth-place matches.

Hay was pleased with how the dual tournament format worked at Port Angeles.

“I was glad to have the girls here,” Hay said. “It was nice to have the boys and girls here at the same place. I think the kids like being together, the boys and girls enjoy supporting each other. That’s big for us because we have our boys and girls working together [in practice].”