Sports Update
World Wide Webb: Plano finishes second at host tourney, West fifth
BY Kevin Hageland, khageland@starlocalnews.com
Saturday at Plano Senior was the seventh annual Taylor Webb Classic, but it was also the first of its kind.
Namely the first time the event was a dual tournament.
"We got enough compliments and I thought things went about as smoothly as you could ask for at a tournament," said Jay Pryor, Plano head coach. "Duals are a different animal because it's all about matchups, but I still thought we wrestled fairly well and gave great effort throughout."
Plano placed second for a second straight year.
The path to get there in 2012 was much different though.
The Wildcats blitzed through Pool A, advancing to the semifinals with wins over Richardson (71-3), Frisco Heritage (60-16) and Lovejoy (69-12).
"We have a lot of young kids, so we still have some work to do," said Mike Eaton, Lovejoy head coach. "But we are taking our lumps now and learning from these experiences so we can be at our best in February."
Eaton is in his first year at Lovejoy after nine seasons at Frisco Centennial.
"Lovejoy has a young team," Pryor said, "but they have huge potential."
Among the standouts for Plano, not just against Lovejoy but for the entire tournament, were seniors Michael Kubik, Omar Tabbakha, Abdul Tabbakha, juniors Taylor Motter, Reed Goodwin and sophomore Beau Hott. Kubik (182 pounds) was Plano's lone selection for the all-tournament team.
"Mike has been doing a great job for us," Pryor said. "We can almost always count on him to get us bonus points."
Plano needed every point it could find in a 35-34 semifinal win over Arlington Bowie.
"We had to spot them a weight to start and then some of our younger kids got pinned," Pryor said, "so we were in a pretty big hole."
Plano mounted its comeback at 138 and took the lead back with a couple matches to go. The Wildcats then leaned on juniors Lior Vansteenkiste and Chandler Hunter to keep that lead, a task they accomplished.
That put Plano into the finals against Justin Northwest.
"That one was almost the same as the Bowie match," Pryor said. "But when we got in that hole again I'm looking at the matches trying to figure out where we were going to get all the points back and I just didn't see it because we weren't going to get all pins. We came back again, but didn't have enough this time."
Northwest defeated Plano, 34-30, for the Taylor Webb Classic Championship.
"Of course we would have wanted to win that last match," Pryor said, "but we still wrestled well."
One of the other teams in Plano's pool was Lovejoy.
The Leopards lost to the Wildcats, but found bright spots in their other pool duals, the first of which was a 42-39 loss to semifinalist Frisco Heritage.
"We lost to Heritage by 24 last week," Eaton said, "so obviously this shows some progress."
No such moral victories were needed in Round 2 as Lovejoy won its first dual match of the season by defeating Richardson, 51-30.
"That was really big for us," Eaton said.
Among the standouts for Lovejoy, which lost to Plano West (51-28) and McKinney Boyd (60-22) in the consolation round, was Aaron Otiker (138). The senior was named to the all-tournament team.
"Aaron is one of our older kids with experience," Eaton said, "so he is really picking up on what we're trying to do here."
Otiker went 5-0 with five pins at the tournament, a record nearly matched by fellow senior Chase McAlister (heavyweight), who went 4-1. The veteran presence of those two has been a good influence on younger grapplers like freshmen Adam Dziubinski (113) and Alek Milewski (126).
"Those two freshmen have wrestled well so far," Eaton said, "and really shown a lot of improvement."
While Plano advanced from Pool A, West could not do the same from Pool B.
The Wolves, trying some lineup experimentation, finished 0-3 in their pool after losses to tournament winner Northwest (48-36), Boyd (51-27) and Bowie (42-37). West would, however, end the day at 2-3 after consolation victories over Lovejoy and Richardson (69-6) and had all-tournament selections in Dean Roudi (145), Marc Sender (152) and Michael Welty (heavyweight).
Namely the first time the event was a dual tournament.
"We got enough compliments and I thought things went about as smoothly as you could ask for at a tournament," said Jay Pryor, Plano head coach. "Duals are a different animal because it's all about matchups, but I still thought we wrestled fairly well and gave great effort throughout."
Plano placed second for a second straight year.
The path to get there in 2012 was much different though.
The Wildcats blitzed through Pool A, advancing to the semifinals with wins over Richardson (71-3), Frisco Heritage (60-16) and Lovejoy (69-12).
"We have a lot of young kids, so we still have some work to do," said Mike Eaton, Lovejoy head coach. "But we are taking our lumps now and learning from these experiences so we can be at our best in February."
Eaton is in his first year at Lovejoy after nine seasons at Frisco Centennial.
"Lovejoy has a young team," Pryor said, "but they have huge potential."
Among the standouts for Plano, not just against Lovejoy but for the entire tournament, were seniors Michael Kubik, Omar Tabbakha, Abdul Tabbakha, juniors Taylor Motter, Reed Goodwin and sophomore Beau Hott. Kubik (182 pounds) was Plano's lone selection for the all-tournament team.
"Mike has been doing a great job for us," Pryor said. "We can almost always count on him to get us bonus points."
Plano needed every point it could find in a 35-34 semifinal win over Arlington Bowie.
"We had to spot them a weight to start and then some of our younger kids got pinned," Pryor said, "so we were in a pretty big hole."
Plano mounted its comeback at 138 and took the lead back with a couple matches to go. The Wildcats then leaned on juniors Lior Vansteenkiste and Chandler Hunter to keep that lead, a task they accomplished.
That put Plano into the finals against Justin Northwest.
"That one was almost the same as the Bowie match," Pryor said. "But when we got in that hole again I'm looking at the matches trying to figure out where we were going to get all the points back and I just didn't see it because we weren't going to get all pins. We came back again, but didn't have enough this time."
Northwest defeated Plano, 34-30, for the Taylor Webb Classic Championship.
"Of course we would have wanted to win that last match," Pryor said, "but we still wrestled well."
One of the other teams in Plano's pool was Lovejoy.
The Leopards lost to the Wildcats, but found bright spots in their other pool duals, the first of which was a 42-39 loss to semifinalist Frisco Heritage.
"We lost to Heritage by 24 last week," Eaton said, "so obviously this shows some progress."
No such moral victories were needed in Round 2 as Lovejoy won its first dual match of the season by defeating Richardson, 51-30.
"That was really big for us," Eaton said.
Among the standouts for Lovejoy, which lost to Plano West (51-28) and McKinney Boyd (60-22) in the consolation round, was Aaron Otiker (138). The senior was named to the all-tournament team.
"Aaron is one of our older kids with experience," Eaton said, "so he is really picking up on what we're trying to do here."
Otiker went 5-0 with five pins at the tournament, a record nearly matched by fellow senior Chase McAlister (heavyweight), who went 4-1. The veteran presence of those two has been a good influence on younger grapplers like freshmen Adam Dziubinski (113) and Alek Milewski (126).
"Those two freshmen have wrestled well so far," Eaton said, "and really shown a lot of improvement."
While Plano advanced from Pool A, West could not do the same from Pool B.
The Wolves, trying some lineup experimentation, finished 0-3 in their pool after losses to tournament winner Northwest (48-36), Boyd (51-27) and Bowie (42-37). West would, however, end the day at 2-3 after consolation victories over Lovejoy and Richardson (69-6) and had all-tournament selections in Dean Roudi (145), Marc Sender (152) and Michael Welty (heavyweight).
Copyright © 2013 - Star Local News