Oregon City, OR — Four individual weight class wins propelled the Camas High School Wrestling team to victory at the Tyrone S. Woods Memorial Tournament Saturday — but that wasn’t the whole story.
Sam Malychweski, Gideon Malychewski, Jack Latimer, and Tanner Craig each beat their opponents to win finals with 250 points overall.
Sam was a dominate force, beating every opponent handily. He’s bigger and stronger this year and won his final match by 15 points.
“My personal goal for the season is to win the 195 4A State title,” said Sam. “I felt that we as a team had a good turnout. And, I thought it was awesome that Jack Latimer, Tanner Craig, Gideon and I won our finals matches.”
Craig pinned his way throughout the tournament, and Latimer went up a weight class at 132. Craig’s opponent was Benjamin Ziegler in the 138 pound weight class.
“I feel like it as a good victory,” said Craig, a junior. “But I also know that there is more work to be put in so that I can still win with tougher opponents at tougher tournaments.”
Latimer wrestled outstanding, as well, beating 2-time State champion, Gavin Jolley.
“Jack dominated the match all around,” said Camas Head Coach, Cory Vom Baur.
“I’m really excited about my win,” said Latimer. “I’ve been working really hard for something like this to happen. This was all part of my plan, and I’m really excited to compete next weekend, as well.”
Gideon entered the tournament unseeded, and he had a close match in semi-finals against the No. 1 seed. He competed in the 170 weight class against Vinnie Chestnut from Lake Oswego with a final score of 8-1 in three rounds.
“I felt really good about it because it was the first tournament of the season,” said Gideon. “And knowing that last year I was in the finals just one time I really wanted to come to this tournament and dominate it.”
He did.
“Gideon is so good at wrestling, he has so much talent,” said Vom Baur. “He has something inside him that can’t be coached. With 30 seconds left Gideon powered his way through tiredness.”
Gideon feels good about the season.
“I was watching our JV wrestlers wrestle in the tourney that we just competed in and I was very impressed with them in the way they wrestled,” Gideon said.
“I didn’t expect us to win the tournament,” said Vom Baur. “We had a good lineup, and we were prepared, but we didn’t have all of our guys there. We told the team that your job is to battle that person in front of you. And they did. Overall, they wrestled well. We haven’t focused as much on conditioning and being mentally tough, but the guys were mentally tough Saturday.”
Vom Baur said it was a team effort to clinch first place. He said that Karter Liefsen placed third, and that Freshman Caleb Ashworth’s efforts stunned people. Ashworth was the rest of the story.
“Caleb pinned three kids!” said Vom Baur. “And he went to semi-finals. He’s a Freshman. Without him we wouldn’t have won.”
The boys compete next at Westview High School this Friday.
To learn more, visit www.camaswrestling.com