LAKE STEVENS — Through eight bouts in Wednesday night’s 4A wrestling showdown between Lake Stevens and Moses Lake, the two powerhouses from opposite sides of the Cascades were deadlocked at 20 points apiece.
That’s when the Chiefs’ depth, and the Vikings lack thereof at the upper weights, were exposed.
Moses Lake registered pinfalls in five of the final six bouts of the match to register a 47-19 victory, but one that was not nearly as lopsided than the score indicated.
Lake Stevens was docked a team point after the bout at 160 pounds for unsportsmanlike conduct to give the Chiefs a 20-19 lead after eight bouts.
Moses Lake rolled from there, and in similar fashion to the Vikings dual defeat against Tahoma earlier in December, the bottom of the Lake Stevens lineup gave way.
“Moses Lake is just so good from top to bottom, and we would have had to wrestle a near-perfect match to beat them in a dual,” Lake Stevens coach Brent Barnes said. “They’re on top right now, and it showed tonight.”
The presence of senior Michael Soler, out Wednesday after suffering a rib injury in practice during the week, likely wouldn’t have made the difference between winning and losing for Lake Stevens, but it would have offered the crowd a tantalizing matchup at 170 pounds between a three-time state champ in Soler and the defending 160-pound champion in Moses Lake’s Hudson Mauseth.
The Vikings would have found it tough to knock off the Chiefs on Wednesday even with a full lineup that included Soler and Gino and Angelo Loera.
“It’s unfortunate that we weren’t able to put a better team on the mat tonight,” Barnes said. “We didn’t have all of our pieces.”
Even so, there were plenty of teachable moments for Barnes and his staff coming out of Wednesday’s defeat, as tough as it is to sell the idea of “the process” to high school athletes.
“We have to work on everything,” Barnes said. “I thought they were able to get to our guys’ legs a little bit tonight and we have to work on that, but it’s everything.”
Barnes inserted Malachi Lawrence at 170 pounds in place of Soler, and the sophomore Tri-State finalist had a tough test in Mauseth.
“I knew he had a very wide offense and was very aggressive,” Lawrence said of Mauseth. “I came out a little bit more defensive-minded than maybe I normally would and it was tough for me to start my own offense.”
After taking an early 2-0 lead with a takedown late in the first period, Mauseth stood tall when Lawrence tied the match with a pair of escapes.
After Lawrence rolled his ankle midway through the third period, Mauseth took him down on the edge of the mat with :39 seconds to go to take a 5-2 lead that would become the winning margin.
“I thought Hudson wrestled one of his best matches of the year tonight,” Moses Lake coach Jaime Garza said. “He didn’t have such a great Tri-State, but he’s back. He was forcing shots that weren’t there too often earlier in the season and tonight he just took what was there.”
Barnes said a match like Wednesday’s would offer his team a chance to take stock before the stretch drive to February’s postseason.
“There’s no better way to test yourself than to go out there and put your pride on the line,” he said. “It’s fruitless and dishonest to tell kids, ‘This doesn’t matter. Just worry about February.’ But there were a lot of valuable things to take from tonight.”
At Lake Stevens H.S.
106—Jacob Bennett (LS) pinned Caleb Alvarado 5:54; 113—Jesus Cornejo (ML) dec. Shawn Barnes 2-0; 120—Kyle LaCoursiere (LS) pinned August Gibson 3:54; 126—Nick Hara (ML) dec. Nathan Scilley 8-4; 132—Christien Knopp (ML) dec. Talon Tate 6-3; 138—Cooper McCullough (ML) dec. Cody LaCoursiere 18-2 (TF 5:50); 145—Jake Douglas (LS) maj. dec. Hunter Cruz 10-1; 152—Trysten Perales (LS) maj. dec. Cyrus Knoll 12-3; 160—Joel Torres (ML) pinned Nick Jensen 1:43; 170—Hudson Mauseth (ML) dec. Malachi Lawrence 5-2; 182—Dylan Morris (ML) pinned Ray Miller :54; 195—Damain Vasquez (ML) pinned Mitch Firth 2:42; 220—Payton Castro (ML) pinned Ryne Pearson 1:20; 285—Chandler Fluaitt (ML) pinned Seth Reyna :35.
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