Wolves dominate Thoman tourney

It was a great weekend for the Green River High School wrestling team.

Competing at home, the Wolves went undefeated and placed first at the annual Bill Thoman Memorial Wrestling Tournament.

Green River won the tournament with wins over Moffat County, Colo. (62-12), Cheyenne South (54-21), Lander (54-21), Douglas (46-34), Scottsbluff, Neb. (53-24), Cheyenne East (48-26) and Uintah, Utah (38-29).

The win in the finals against Uintah avenged an earlier dual loss against the Utes.

"We wrestled with much more intensity this weekend, the kids got after it and wanted badly to win their home tournament," head coach Marshall Rhodes said. "We turned a few key matches around in the Uintah dual and won by nine, a month ago we lost to that same team by 15, that is some hard work paying off."

Green River wrestlers Cyro Montoya (103) and Cole Verner (120) both went 8-0 at the tournament and won their final match in the "best of best round." Verner defeated Scottsbluff High School wrestler Keegan Hessler 5-3 to win his final match. Montoya won by fall over Evanston wrestler Sam Lester at the 3:28 mark.

Gage Byers also advanced to the best of best round. Byers was 7-2 at the tournament with both losses coming to Uintah High School wrestler Kendric Coonis.

"We won close matches and competed hard the whole time, I am proud of them. The wresters on the junior varsity and the others competing at the varsity level for other teams wrestled hard as well, winning many matches. We realize we have much work to do but the Wolves are going to enjoy this win," Rhodes said.

Green River will not get much time to enjoy the victory. They are scheduled to travel Thursday for two duals in Idaho Falls. On Friday and Saturday they will compete at the Tiger-Grizz tournament in Idaho Falls.

"If we keep up the intensity and hard work we should finish well," Rhodes said.