Dogies drop to 1-2 against Wright
Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Reporter
It was a 2A vs. 3A matchup, but that didn’t matter when it came to bragging rights as the Wright Panthers came to town on Friday. Newcastle/Upton had faced off against the Campbell County team twice this season, winning the first 42-24 but losing the second 24-45, so this third matchup was the rubber match.
Unfortunately, Wright was able to get the better of the Dogies/Bobcats, again by a score of 24-45, but a couple of Newcastle grapplers were able to exact some revenge.
“I wasn’t really happy with how we performed on Friday,” sighed co-head coach Lee McCoy. “We didn’t wrestle our best and we were pretty flat. We just weren’t wrestling to win matches and that is something that we have been doing in the last couple of weeks, really taking it to our opponents.”
Kale Corley was an exception to that rule as he played a little cat-and-mouse with his Panther in the 145 pound weight class in order to provide himself more time on the mat, but according to McCoy he could have put an end to things quite quickly. As it was, Corley put his opponent out of his misery at 1:50 into the match.
Cael Holmes (120) won his match in a nail-biter that came down to the final seconds. He had a slim 3-2 lead against a talented Panther who is ranked #4 in 2A, so he had his coaches, team and fans on the edges of their seats. With the win, Holmes turned the tables on his opponent who got the better of him by decision the last time the two went head-to-head.
“Cael wrestled well, he just needed to keep his foot on the gas,” McCoy cautioned. “If he wrestled the way he’s capable, he should beat that kid 10-1, so a one-point lead was a little too close for comfort.”
Johnny Carlson (126) also won bragging rights back with his 6-1 victory over Kagen Baker, the second-ranked wrestler in 2A.
“I was really proud of Johnny, because he wrestled well and he wrestled hard,” McCoy nodded. “His guy has beat Johnny in the past but he went out and outworked the kid until he didn’t want anymore. What Johnny did is what I want all of our kids to do.”
Unfortunately, there weren’t a lot of other bright spots on the night which prompted coaches to hold a practice on Saturday in lieu of their cancelled quad scheduled for the same day in Douglas.
“We just weren’t very aggressive and attacking so we decided we needed to emphasize getting back to that on Saturday,” McCoy determined. “Time is running short and we have to get better. We’ve got some young kids in our line-up that don’t have much for varsity experience, but like we talked to them on Saturday, they are in our line-up for a reason and we expect them to step up and wrestle like varsity wrestlers.”
The Douglas quad was cancelled on Saturday due to having four wrestlers and a coach test positive with COVID-19 on the Bearcats squad. Douglas is also supposed to be in Wheatland on Thursday where the Dogies are scheduled to compete, but McCoy has already let Wheatland know that his team will not be competing against the Bearcats.
“If they’ve got four kids positive, they probably have a dozen who just haven’t tested. We don’t need to see them up close and personal a week before Regionals,” he insisted. “If someone gets COVID at this point, they’re done so I’m just trying to protect the kids as much as I can.”
The Dogies/Bobcats will travel to Wheatland on Thursday to compete against Wheatland and Rawlins, and McCoy acknowledged that he is hoping that protocols requiring showering and changing singlets between duals will help mitigate the potential spread of the virus.
The Campbell County dual scheduled for this Friday has been cancelled because Newcastle/Upton had too many competitions on their schedule so had to eliminate one of them.