Central Oregonian

CCHS looks strong at season-opening tournament

Cowboys finish with a 64-27 record at Central Oregon Officials Tournament

JASON CHANEY/CENTRAL OREGONIAN

Grayson Munn dominates his match against an opponent from Burns during the season-opening Central Oregon Officials Tournament. No scores were kept at the event.

Lon Austin

December 06, 2012

The Crook County High School wrestling team had their first test of the season this past Saturday and they passed with flying colors.

The Cowboys competed in the Central Oregon Officials Tournament, and came away with a 64-27 record at the event.

There were more than 300 wrestlers at the event, which included every team from Central Oregon.

“It was kind of hard to gauge how everyone did because I wasn’t in both gyms,” head coach Jake Huffman said. “But I think the general consensus was that we wrestled well. We aren’t where we want to be yet technically, but I think we were ahead of the game. As far as our conditioning and competitiveness we were there.”

No results were kept for the tournament, which was intended to be something of a fundraiser for the teams involved. The officials at the tournament donated their time and all proceeds from the event were given back to the schools involved.

Wrestlers were divided into A, B, and C divisions, with the A group being experienced varsity wrestlers while the B and C group were JV and novice wrestlers.

“The good thing about the tournament was that everybody, varsity down to freshmen, got the same coaching and had the same opportunity to wrestle,” Huffman said. “Everybody got at least two matches and there was some great competition. There were a couple of brackets where they had four state placers in a bracket and that was pretty cool.”

Huffman added that there were too many Cowboys who went undefeated at the tournament to name all of them. However, at the same time, some of the team’s top wrestlers suffered losses.

“We had a couple of our best guys get beat,” Huffman said. “That is great early in the season so that they know that they need to continue to push.”

Despite the losses, Huffman was pleased with the team’s overall performance.

“We wrestled really well,” he said. “I think that we were the best team there at this point in the season. Redmond was missing a lot of their kids because they went far in the football playoffs and Culver was missing some kids because of injuries and stuff, but it was a good starting point for us.”

Although he was pleased with his team’s performance, Huffman was more interested in talking about this weekend’s Coast Classic.

“That’s the first big milestone of the season,” he said. “Everyone has got a competition and a few weeks of training under their belt and the best teams from the state come.”

The tournament, which begins Friday in North Bend, features many of the top 5A?and 6A schools in the state.

“It’s an individual-type format so we will get to see how we stack up in a state tournament-type format,” Huffman said. “It’s one of the toughest tournaments of the year. We will get to see how we stack up against the best in the state.”

Crook County has been attending the tournament for more than 20 years and finished second last year.

“We go there to win,” Huffman said. “We don’t go to any tournament to take second. We obviously know that the season is a process and we are not going to gauge our success or our happiness on whether we win the Coast Classic or not, but we aren’t going there to lose.”