Wolves seem to be peaking at just the right time

Chad Nass has been hoping his wrestling team would soon turn the corner.

And with three wrestlers making the finals in their weight division at Saturday’s Central Kitsap Invitational and another six working their way into the consolation finals, it seems the South Kitsap wrestlers have done just that.

Brent Chriswell and Josiah Kipperberg won their respective weight classes, while Orry Perez returned from a concession to take a second place to lead the Wolves to a third-place team finish.

“I was very pleased — very pleased,” Nass, South’s second-year coach said. “I thought the kids wrestled really, really well.”

Nass has been telling his group that the season, which is now just weeks away from the postseason, is more of a marathon than a sprint and it’s important for them to peak at the right time. After Saturday’s showing, he said he feels they’re on the verge of doing just that.

Lake Stevens won the tourney with 218.5 points, while Enumclaw took second at 203.5 and South grabbed third with a score of 151.5.

But it was the sheer number of kids who fought their way to the day’s final matches that had Nass feeling good about the coming weeks.

“I’ve kind of felt like, for the last couple of weeks, we haven’t started to turn that corner yet,” Nass said. “I was sort of hoping we would start our climb to where we are peaking. And I feel like, based on the performance on Saturday, we’re starting to turn that corner and picking it up at the tail end of the season, which is what you want to see.”

Chriswell and Kipperberg did what they were expected to do. Chriswell kept his record spotless this year after beating Auburn-Riverside’s Kyle Jones in the finals of the 189-pound division, while Kipperberg ran his season mark to 22-2 after defeating Zac Rasach of Newport at 119 pounds.

Perez, who had wrestled since the Pacific Coast Tournament in late December, vaulted into the finals of the 171 pound division, marking his best showing of the year.

“He wrestled really well all day long, Nass said. “He just had a great tournament.”

The Wolves also got an outstanding performance from Kurtis Fenton, who knocked of Olympic’s Camie Yeik and Lake Stevens’ Zach Zweifel to place third at 103 pounds.

Bobby Arendsee saw his first varsity action of the year and ended up taking third place at 152 pounds, while Matt Foxworthy placed fifth at 215 in his first varsity action in over a month, and Jesse Barich and Dylan Watkins both took fifth place.

Brady Winslow and Rodger Nuttall both had good days going but ended up having to take injury defaults, which ended their days.

Nass said he felt the team took a big step up as a whole. And that’s saying a lot since he has had the team taking part in so highly competitive tournaments that have featured some of the state’s best teams.

“We maybe haven’t placed as well in those tournaments,” Nass said. “But as the season wears on, it will pay big dividends for us because we’ve wrestled some of the best already. “

South faced a strong Shelton team late Tuesday night and is at Bremerton Thursday night.

South will play host to the SK Invitational Saturday.

Central Kitsap Invitational

Team scores: Lake Stevens 218.5, Enumclaw 203.5, South Kitsap 151.5, Rogers 118.5, Auburn Riverside 104, Bethel 97, Shelton 95, North Kitsap 83, Mount Spokane 77.5, Central Kitsap 72, Olympic 68, Spanaway Lake 60.5, Newport 55, Davis 48.5, Federal Way 40, Bremerton 26.5

Championship matches:

103 — Mike Turner (Auburn Riverside) d. Ivan Carbajal (Davis) 8-5; 112 — Kyle Hammack (Auburn Riverside) d. Sam Bauer (Enumclaw) 10-8; 119 — Josiah Kipeprberg (South Kitsap) d. Zac Rasach (Newport), 3-1; 125 — Jeremy Knowlton (Shelton) d. Franco Cruz (Central Kitsap), 16-7; 130 — Josh Monson (Lake Stevens) p. Tony Smetzler (Shelton), 3:14; 135 — Kelly Kubec (Lake Stevens) d. Jonathan Musick (Enumclaw), 9-1; 140 — Kai VanLueven (Lake Stevens), by inj. def. over Brad Parker (Enumclaw); 145 — James Albert (Rogers) d. Zack Anderson (Enumclaw), 5-2; 152 — Billy Moehrle (Lake Stevens) d. Joey Pierotti (Enumclaw), 13-7; 160 — Alex Pitsch (Bethel) d. Zach Burnett (Lake Stevens), 6-1; 171 — Joe Temus (Rogers) d. Orry Perez (South Kitsap), 12-2; 189 — Brent Chriswell (South Kitsap) d. Kyle Jones (Auburn Riverside), 9-1; 215 — Kevin Shields (Enumclaw) p. Jeremy Williams (Bethel), 1:50; 275 — Zach Corbett (Shelton) d. Kevin Siperek (Olympic), 14-3.

 

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