The Camp Verde Cowboys wrestling team finished eighth out of 32 teams at the Moon Valley Invitational wrestling tournament Dec. 21 at Moon Valley High School in north Phoenix.
The Moon Valley tournament is one of the top three tournaments in the state of Arizona and features some of the top wrestlers and teams in the state. The average size of the schools that entered the tournament this year was 1,600 students. Camp Verde was the smallest school to enter with 420 students.
Despite this, both Hayden Uhler and Isaiah McReynolds placed second in their weight classes for the Cowboys while teammates Alex Casillas, Matt Mejia and Jeremy McEachern each placed fifth.
Each weight class was divided up into four pools, and each wrestler competed in seven matches within their pools. After that, the top two wrestlers from each of the four pools competed in the finals.
In all, Cowboys wrestlers won 33 of their matches by pin, scoring enough points to keep them close to the top two teams in the tournament — Dobson High School from Chandler and Corona Del Sol High School from Tempe — despite the fact that Camp Verde did not enter a wrestler in two of the weight classes.
For the full story, please see the Wednesday, Jan. 1, issue of the Camp Verde Journal.
