Sports Roundup — Wrestlers grapple with success over Rams/Swimmers split in pool action/Gymnasts vault to yet another win

Published 5:00 pm Saturday, December 17, 2005

Wrestlers grapple with success over Rams

Eli Narte and Matthew Ritualo record pins in the Spartans’ opener.

The Bainbridge wrestling team finally got on the mat, and it was a positive start.

The Spartans defeated Ingraham 39-33 last Thursday, then placed fourth at the Highline Tournament last Saturday.

“You can tell that they’re doing stuff that we drill on all the time,” co-head coach Britton Johnson said. “We did some lazy stuff, but we have time to work on it. We’ve got a good bond and we want to keep that family atmosphere.”

Against Ingraham, Eli Narte and Matthew Ritualo scored pins to put Bainbridge up by 12.

Patrick Macala and Anna Lyons won by forefeit while Brian Robert won by pinfall and Robert Ferguson won by a 9-4 decision to put them ahead for good.

At the tournament, Bainbridge lost to Federal Way, but defeated Ballard and Shorecrest before losing to the Eagles in the third/fourth place match.

Co-head coach Dan Pippinger likes what he sees.

“It’s nice to have a group of guys that know what our technique is and know what they’re supposed to be doing,” he said. “We need to work on our conditioning a bit, but that’s part of our season process. We want to be the best conditioned team out there.”

Bainbridge will participate in the Squalicum Invitiational in Bellingham today, then take part in the North Mason Classic on Dec. 30.

They resume league play Jan. 4 at O’Dea.

Swimmers split

in pool action

The Spartan swim and dive team lost to Eastside Catholic last Friday at home, but defeated the South Kitsap Wolves 128-58 on the road.

“We had a great meet at South Kitsap,” head coach Kaycee Taylor said. “It was my first time going down to that pool, and it was a really fast pool so we got a lot of district times for our kids.”

That includes Aaron Smith, who scored a district qualifying time of 1:05.45 with his fourth place finish in the 100-yard butterfly, his first meet after being out for a year with an injury.

Clif McKenzie scored a district qualifying time of 24.34 in the 50 freestyle, along with Tamas Torok and Caelen Ball, who were second and third respectively.

Ball also achieved a district time with his second-place finish in the 100 free along with Jon Swanson, who finished first with a time of 54.41.

Austin Hallett continued his assault on the school record book with a state qualifying time of 54.16 in the 100 butterfly, just missing out on the school record of 53.29 set by Jeff Christenson in 2001.

He also scored a district time in the 100 back stroke.

Cheyne Clark scored the second highest dive in BHS history with his score of 208.45 in six dives, but Olaf Olsen scored 286.45 in six dives, breaking his old record of 277.95.

“I don’t want to sound too confident, but I’d be very surprised if he doesn’t finish first (at state),” said Taylor, who also feels Olsen will break the 300-point mark sometime this season.

The Spartans will resume league play Jan. 6 when they travel to face Ingraham at Madison Pool.

Gymnasts vault to yet another win

The Bainbridge gymnastics team earned its 76th straight league meet win on Tuesday.

Marie Welsh was the all-around champion with 35 points as the Spartans defeated Nathan Hale 154.3-120.5.

Head coach Cindy Guy said it was a good chance for her squad to get used to the Raiders’ gym, where the Metro League championship meet will be held.

“They have a wrestling mat floor, and it’s rock hard,” she said. “And with all our injuries, we did some really light tumbling, and we didn’t do the same stuff we do at home.”

Welsh finished first in all four events, achieving a high score of 9.4 on the beam.

Sophie Wenzlau took second in the all-around as she tied for fourth on the vault and the floor exercise and placed second on the beam.

Annie Zuckermann was third in the all-around competition, while Lauren Fleming and Kathleen Callahan tied for fourth.

Emily Basile took sixth in the all-around with a score of 27.29.

The Spartans hosted Shorecrest yesterday and will return to competition Jan. 10 when West Seattle and Chief Sealth come to the island.

The start time is at 6 p.m.