Cedarcrest’s Claussen wins state title

Published 9:00 pm Saturday, February 17, 2007

TACOMA – Dan Claussen started off his day by exorcising some personal demons. He finished it with a little impromptu exercise.

The Cedarcrest senior capped off his impressive wrestling career with a state title, followed shortly thereafter by a celebratory cartwheel.

“They say you have to have a back-flip to win a state title,” Claussen said after defeating Pullman’s Matt David 8-6 in the 140-pound final of the 2A state tournament. “I can’t do a back-flip, so I did a cartwheel instead.”

Claussen went to the state semifinals all four years of his varsity career, but Saturday morning marked the first time he earned a trip to the finals. After beating David, he was all smiles.

“It’s a relief,” he said.

Claussen was the lone area state champion from Classes 2A and below in what was an otherwise disappointing day for Cedarcrest and B school Darrington. The only other Cedarcrest wrestler made it to the championship round lost. Darrington had three wrestlers lose in the state finals, failing to bring home an individual championship.

In the end, both schools finished among the top 10 in their respective class and saw the tournament as an overall success.

“It was great,” Darrington coach Jeremy Stafford said after his team finished eighth in Class B. “All the kids left everything they had out there, and that’s all I could ask for.”

Johnny Loughnan (112 pounds), Conner Rounds (189) and Trevor Herston (215) all wrestled for state titles but came up short.

Herston was involved in one of the longest matches of the day, eventually losing 16-11 to Kittitas senior Louie Bruketta after nearly 30 minutes of facility difficulties, officiating gaffes and injury timeouts.

The start of the match was delayed briefly by drops of water that fell from the Tacoma Dome roof. Herston suffered a bloody nose seconds into the match, then had three delays to stop the bleeding. At one point, trainers wrapped tape around his head and nostrils to stop the flow.

The officials stopped several times to discuss scoring questions, further delaying the finish. Things got so out of hand that Darrington was penalized an overall team point after an assistant coach shouted at the officials in the third period.

After entering the final round with 68 team points and a sixth-place standing, the Loggers finished in eighth, with one point fewer because of the penalty.

Rounds lost 14-7 to Kent Jenkins of Pomeroy, and Loughnan got pinned in the championship match of the 112-pound class.

In addition to the state championship participants, Darrington earned points from place-winners Kolton Palmer (fourth at 130 pounds) and Stormee Brown (fourth at 140).

Cedarcrest had moderately better luck in Class 2A, mostly because of Claussen’s state title.

The senior literally held on to beat David in the championship match. Claussen was leading by two points with 20 seconds left when David made a quick move that nearly resulted in a two-point reversal. Claussen held onto David’s left foot for the final few seconds to prevent the move to be completed.

Claussen needed no such last-second heroics to win his semifinal match, scoring seven points in the decisive third period to pull away from a 3-3 tie and win 10-4.

Cedarcrest 189-pounder Rick Westermann also won a semifinal match to advance to Saturday night’s finals, but he got pinned by returning state champion Erich Schmidtke of Aberdeen to finish his run.

Junior Ty Howard, who was ranked the top 103-pounder in the state, regardless of class, lost in overtime to Black Hills senior Joel McGill. Howard rebounded from that loss with three consecutive victories to take home a third-place trophy.

Overall, the Red Wolves had four place-winners. Brady Paxman took third at 171 pounds.

Cedarcrest finished with 83 points to take fifth in Class 2A. W.F. West, with 126.5 points, was the overall team champion.

The only other local schools to have wrestlers place in the 2A tournament were Lakewood (Steve Edmonds, fourth at 130), South Whidbey (Ben Morgen, sixth at 145) and Sultan (Abe Bray, eighth at 152).