The Union Titans crowned five individual champions Saturday night en route to an easy team victory at the Class 4A District 4 Wrestling Tournament.
“I’m more happy with the team title than my title,” said Max Proudfit, who defeated Evergreen’s Micah Bagley for the 285-pound title, the final match of the night. “I’m proud of my team, and I’m proud of how I wrestled. Let’s see if we can carry it over to regionals.”
The top two wrestlers from each weight class qualified for next week’s regional tournament at Lake Stevens. The third-place finisher from district will wrestle a pig-tail match in order to advance to regionals.
The 4A Greater St. Helens League will see a lot of talented Titans and Plainsmen. Union and Evergreen each had five district champions. Union, though, easily outdistanced its competition in points, scoring 330.5 to top Evergreen’s 255.
Proudfit’s victory avenged an overtime loss to Bagley in the Clark County tournament. It was Proudfit’s third district title, and he celebrated with a victory gallop.
Tyler Davis won Union’s first title of the night, pinning Battle Ground’s Adam Peterson for the 135-pound title. Dillon Thomas also won via pin, taking down Joey Cooper of Heritage at 171 pounds.
Jake Virtue defeated Kendrick Spiller of Heritage 5-4 at 145 pounds, and JoJo Reynolds (152) also won for the Titans.
Just like Proudfit, Virtue cared more about the team accomplishment.
“I thank, every day, coach John Godinho for being there for me and all the guys pushing me in practice,” Virtue said.
Battle Ground’s Shawn Speer, who came into the tournament as the No. 3 seed in a five-team district, won the highest-scoring final of the night, enduring a 21-14 victory over Union’s Justin Hu.
“I think it was the adrenaline, something in my head telling me I can’t quit,” Speer said.
Both wrestlers had near-fall points in the match.
“I was ahead early, but there was a time when it was really close,” Speer said. “He was really good. It could have gone either way.”
The Nguyen brothers got the Plainsmen off to a quick start.
Wrestling side by side in the two-mats-at-a-time finals, Matthew Nguyen pinned Shayne Burt of Union in 1 minute, 18 seconds for the 112-pound title. Five real-time seconds later, Michael Nguyen pinned Jose Nava Montez of Skyview — officially at 1:19 — for the 103-pound title.
Peyton Zeller-Av made it three in a row for the Plainsmen with the 119-pound title. Anthony Thomas (160) and Tim Peraza (215) gave Evergreen five champions.
Heritage’s Austin Frazier won his third district title, this time beating Rosalio Contreras of Evergreen 8-4 at 125 pounds. Frazier said he is wrestling with a torn rotator cuff in his right shoulder.
“I’ll live through it,” he said. “I love wrestling. Nothing feels better than getting your hand raised and standing on top of the podium.”
Miguel Simon of Battle Ground held off Bryson Page of Union 3-2 to win at 189 pounds. Clint Powers of Skyview continued his impressive comeback season. A year after shoulder surgery, he beat Sam Berry of Union to win at 130 pounds.
And at the same time, Evergreen and Union had guaranteed champions when they had teammates wrestle each other in the finals. Union’s Reynolds topped Matt Rice 2-0 at 152 pounds. On the other mat, Thomas topped Evergreen teammate Austin Rains 13-6 at 160.
