Nearly a dozen wrestling squads from schools around the region descended upon Bainbridge High School Saturday, Jan. 9 for the annual Island Invitational Tournament, where the BHS team saw three grapplers take top 10 spots in their respective brackets.
The Spartans managed a final team score of 39, and earned 10th place overall.
The champion squad of the day, Klahowya High, finished with a combined score of 167. Other schools participating included Sequim, North Mason, Mountlake Terrace, Interlake, Kingston, Marysville Getchell, Stadium, North Kitsap and Mercer Island.
The event was successful and all the athletes involved benefited greatly from the tournament-style format, which much more accurately represents later season higher level competition than the typical two or three school matches, Spartan Head Coach Dan Pippinger said.
“We were real happy with the teams that came and everybody’s ability to get lots of wrestling done,” he said.
“It really models what happens in the post season,” he added. “Being ready, spending a long day in the gym and you wrestle two to five times and there’s long gaps in between, and keeping yourself ready to wrestle but not wearing yourself out, finding the balance.”
The trio of top-placing Spartan wrestlers included BHS team co-captains Hague Bush, who finished in third place in the 170-pound bracket, and Aaron Jumpa, the fourth-place winner in the 160-pound bracket; as well as Jared Gray, who claimed eighth place in the 285-pound bracket.
Bush moved through a first round bye before taking on Mountlake Terrace’s Jaice Jones. He had Jones pinned in 1:46, but was bested by Stadium’s Mohamed Diawara in 5:16 in the next match.
In the consolation bracket, Bush defeated Shane Recichling of Marysville Getchell 9-7 and then Kingston’s Alex Maxwell 7-5 to claim third place.
Jumpa also enjoyed a first match bye before settling in to defeat Sequim’s Austin Budd in 5:44. He then lost in an 8-7 decision against Sequim’s Kevyn Ward.
In the consolation bracket, Jumpa beat Marysville Getchell’s Devon Rose in a 12-1 decision, before being defeated by Klahowya’s Gabe Wallis 4-2, and being barely forced out of third place.
Gray suffered a loss in 1:15 in his first match against Sequim’s McKenzie Stockdale.
In the consolation bracket, Gray moved through a bye round first, and then was beaten in his second match in 1:55 by Klahowya’s Chris Greene.
Pippinger said that the two final matches by Jumpa and Bush especially were definite Spartan highlights of the day, examples for the mostly junior squad of quality wrestling.
“Aaron probably had the toughest weight bracket in the tournament,” he said, adding that this year’s crop of athletes were highly skilled overall with no clear championship frontrunners, as in past seasons.
“The thing that there isn’t this year in the area is that kind of standout, Bobby Reece-type,” he said. “The kind of kid who won a couple state championships and [is] in people’s eyes maybe unbeatable.”
Reece, a former student at Kingston High, dominated local sports headlines after he claimed his fourth state title in 2014.
“There’s no one really like that, but there’s decent talent in the area in terms of people that are going to be successful at the state tournament,” Pippinger said.
