EL RENO — The No. 7 Weatherford Eagles wrestling team had its hand full Tuesday night in a dual match at El Reno as they lost 48-27.
“El Reno is tough and they are a Top-5 team for a reason,” coach Corey Duncan said. “I thought we wrestled well in lots of the matches and we did some good things. We just got to learn to keep wrestling through the whole match with the better guys.”
Despite the outcome, Duncan said they wrestled really hard, but left El Reno as a better team going forward.
“I thought we competed hard,” Duncan said. “We had some guys win good matches and look good doing so. We lost a couple of close matches which could have gone the other way for us made the dual score look better. Overall we did as best as we can and I can live with that at the end day.”
Duncan said they can use Tuesday night as a building block and El Reno is ranked high for a reason and they are team which wants to get to the next level and they can build off this.
“They can use the way El Reno wrestled and their intensity in matches and say we got to do that,” Duncan said. “I think guys will respond to that and use it as a tool to get better. I thought our guys wrestled well, we just got to learn to finish matches in the right way. I told the guys this just building step towards regionals. We want to wrestle a tough schedule and we want tough battles every night because come regional time we want to be ready and use to it.”
The score was tied, 12-12, early because of two forfeits from both sides. El Reno got on a roll and was ahead 45-12 at one point during the match.
Weatherford came back as Tyler Jack Hoffman won 7-1 for the Eagles at 182 pounds with two takedowns in the third period, making the score 45-15.
“Tyler Jack looked good,” Duncan said. “He wrestled hard for 6 minutes controlled the match and came away with 7-1 win. He has looked good this year at 182, and setting himself up for a solid senior year.”
Sam Hoffman lost his match 3-1 at 195 pounds. Despite his loss, Duncan said he had a really good chance to win the match and has confidence because of that match.
“He stayed in good position and was a controlled aggressive,” Duncan said. “He took bad shot which cost him but on the other hand he went after it and wanted to win and that was one of the best matches I have seen him wrestle in his high school career. You know sometimes a loss against a tough kid like that can build him some confidence.”
Izeaha Freeborn had Weatherford’s only pin of the night, winning his match 6-0 in the 220 weight class, making the score 48-21.
“Izeaha wrestled well as he got us our only pin of the night,” Duncan said. “He is on a mission to get back to the state tournament make name for himself. He is currently undefeated on the year and looking dominate.”
Eli Soto won his match 6-0 at 285 pounds, but the Eagles lost 48-27. Weatherford now is 5-3 on the season and they currently are in action at the 20th annual Cushing Invitational Wrestling Tournament in Cushing.
“I expect us to do well,” Duncan said. “We are going to have our team together and we have some guys who can compete at this tournament. I think that we are prepared for this weekend and I think our guys ready and wanting to compete at Cushing. I am excited for it and I think we are going to get after it this weekend.”