South Platte Sentinel Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2009 Page 21

BINGO!PUBLIC

INVITEDHamburgers &

Hot DogsVFW Post Home

803 Phelps St.7:00 p.m.

Feb. 20, 2009

Perfection Door Company315 N. Front St. Sterling, CO 80751

970-522-7714 1-800-748-1554www.perfectiondoor.com pdoor@perfectiondoor.com

S p o r t sS p o r t s

By Ken McDowell Sports EditorAKRON - The Merino Rams just

very well may be hitting on all cylin-ders at the right time of the season.

For the first time since 2006, theRams captured the Class 2A Region3 Wrestling Tournament last week-end in Akron. Also for the first time,all 13 Merino grapplers placed in thetop six as the Rams posted a teamscore of 205 to claim the title over 10other schools.

In addition, Merino will send eightgrapplers to the Class 2A State Tour-nament Thursday, Friday and Satur-day at the Pepsi Center in Denver.

Heading to state for Merino arefreshman James Hastings at 103lbs.; junior Devon Hase at 112 lbs.;sophomore Ty Lebsock at 119 lbs.;senior Scotty Shahid at 125 lbs.;junior Wyatt Barber at 135 lbs.;sophomore Kyle Kasper at 52 lbs.;sophomore Tuff Gibson at 171 lbs.and junior Tyson Urrutia at 215 lbs.

The top four finishers in eachweight class earn the right to ad-vance to the state tournament. Haseand Barber were champions in theirweight classes in the regional tour-ney.

Placing second were Hastings,Lebsock, Kasper and Urrutia andthird place finishers were Shahidand Gibson.

Also placing in the regional tour-nament for the Rams were fresh-man David Michel, fifth at 130 lbs.;senior Mitchell Harryman, sixth at140 lbs.; junior Andrew Burton, fifthat 145 lbs.; senior John Barker, fifthat 160 lbs. and junior Ty Gibson, fifthin the 189 lb. class.

“The kids did a nice job in theregional tournament,” said MerinoCoach John Barber. “I think this isthe first time we have had all 13 kidsplace, so you can’t ask for muchmore than that.

“I would also like to thank ourfans who came to the regional tour-nament and supported our wrestlersin a positive way. They were terrific.”

The second place team in theregional tournament was Wigginswith 192 points, Akron third with 162,Holyoke fourth with 146.5, SedgwickCounty fifth with 120, Stratton sixthwith 91, Fleming seventh with 70,

Byers eighth with 64, Limon ninthwith 37, Hanover 10th with 17 andNederland was 11th with 3 points.

Opening round matches in thestate tournament will be held Thurs-day at the Pepsi Center. The tourna-

ment will resume Friday with cham-pionship, third and fourth place andconsolation bouts slated on Satur-day.

Last year the Rams sent six wres-tlers to the state tournament andplaced 29th as a team with only 26points. Barber wants to see a hugeimprovement from his team in thisyear’s event.

“We’re going to change things upa little this year preparing for thestate tournament,” the Merino coachpointed out. “I don’t know if we havethe horses to compete for the state

title as a team because there will beso many great teams at state.

“But a top 10 finish would be verynice. We just need to go wrestle ourbest and hopefully have several kidswrestling late Saturday night.”

Opening round matches for Me-rino in the state tournament include:

103 lbs. - James Hastings (22-11) vs. freshman Miguel Torres (15-12), Burlington.

112 lbs. - Devon Hase (23-6) vs.junior Dillon Bailey (24-13), DoveCreek.

The Merino Rams captured the regional wrestling title Saturday for thefirst time since 2006 while placing 13 grapplers and sending 8 to state.Team members are (front row left to right) Zach Kirschbaum, DavidMichel, Mitchell Harryman, John Barker, James Hastings; (middle row leftto right) Scotty Shahid, Ty Gibson, Devon Hase, Joel Trout, Ty Lebsock,Tyson Urrutia and (back row left to right) Kyle Kasper, Tuff Gibson,Boston Hastings, Wyatt Barber, Derek Smart and Andrew Burton. (SPSPhoto By Cindy Harryman.)

Please See State Page 22

Wyatt Barber (top photo) pins Dalton Marini of Wiggins in the champion-ship bout of the 135 lb. class Saturday. Ty Lebsock (bottom) topples JustinLivingston of Stratton during opening round action. Lebsock placedsecond in the 119 lb. class and will join Barber and six other Merinowrestlers at state this weekend. (SPS Photos By Cindy Harryman.)

Merino Rams regional champions; Send eight to state