MONROE — The result was as good as Shaun Williams could have wanted — he just wished he understood how his wrestlers got it.
Arlington defeated Monroe 58-18 in a Wesco North match Jan. 4, despite missing six starters.
“I still don’t know what to think because it’s not what I taught,” Williams said, referring to the style of wrestling he saw from many of his reserves. “But it was good for some of our younger guys to come through.”
And come through they did, as the Eagles collected seven pins en route to their third win of the season. With the match beginning at the 189-pound class, the Eagles got pins from Seth Henderson (1:38), 285 pounder Ben Torve (0:56), 112 pounder Joey Nunez (3:25) and Jeremy King (5:01) at 119 pounds to start.
The first nine classes resulted in eight pins and a Arlington forfeit, making the score 36-18, and from there the Eagles didn’t look back.
Personifying the kind of night the young Arlington replacements had was Nunez, who utilizes an emotional element in his strategy that keeps him on the edge the entire time.
“He’s very unorthodox and I don’t know if he can always win with how he goes about it,” Williams said. “But eventually he’ll find a comfortable zone with it.”
Williams also praised King and 160-pounder Angelo Mirante, who each scored pins. Mirante’s came inside the first minute in the fastest of the evening at 55 seconds, just one faster than Torve’s.
“He had a great match and showed nice technique,” Williams said.
Competing in 12 dual matches and five tournaments this regular season, Williams has to shuffle his wrestlers around so they don’t breach the limit of 35 match-ups per season. But even though he was wrestling a number of underclassmen, he didn’t expect to be pinned three times in the first seven match-ups, causing him to wrestle junior Hunter Amundson, who scored a pin in the second period at 130 pounds against Jake Elledge.
“We started getting pinned and I was going to sit Hunter, but I had to have him come in and get us back on track,” he said. “Sometimes, a team gets on a roll and you can’t stop the momentum. I give Hunter credit for stopping that.”
Many of the tournaments, such as the Tri-State in Idaho, the Lake Stevens Invite and the Rocky Mountain Invite draw the top wrestlers in the Northwest, a level of competition that Williams said his grapplers have responded to.
“Overall I think the level is much higher than they’re used to, but the response has been positive,” he said. “We want to be like Lake Stevens and Central Valley.”
Also earning pins were Blake Thuline (1:37) and Hayden Love (2:13) at 135 and 171 pounds, respectively. Chris (140) and Shawn Berg (145) won by decision.
