Connor Farlow grapples a The Dalles wrestler in a match last season. Farlow was the 113-pound champion at the 19-team Pendleton Red Lion Invitational on Dec. 21.
Connor Farlow grapples a The Dalles wrestler in a match last season. Farlow was the 113-pound champion at the 19-team Pendleton Red Lion Invitational on Dec. 21.
Hood River Valley, led by individual champions Connor and Carson Farlow, wrestled to a runner-up team finish at the 19-team Pendleton Red Lion Invitational on Dec. 21 at the Pendleton Convention Center.
Hood River Valley, with 19 competing wrestlers, scored 169.5 points; Burns High won the tourney with 261 points. Most of the schools have fewer students than HRV, but the tourney field was loaded with some of the better wrestling talent from the eastern side of Oregon — no matter the enrollment level. Burns and Nyssa (which finished fourth) have combined to win 25 OSAA state wrestling team championships.
Connor Farlow was the 113-pound champion, and brother Carson won at 138 pounds. Connor Farlow improved his season record to 10-2, winning three matches — including the first-place match, 11-1 over Peyton Miller of East Valley of Yakima. Brother Carson (12-1 this season) won by fall in his first three matches and then won an 8-6 decision over Cooper Yensen of McLoughlin in the 138-pound final.
Leif Mortenson led the upper-weight Eagle wrestlers, placing third at 160 pounds. He won three of four wrestled matches, including his first two by fall. Nyssa’s Ashton Wilson, a state tourney wrestler a season ago, beat Mortenson in the semifinals enroute to winning the weight bracket. Two other HRV wrestlers competed at 160: Kevin Castro won two of four wrestled matches and placed 10th; Samuel Blosser had two pins at Pendleton and finished 11th.
At 182 pounds, Joel Bronson bounced back from a quarterfinal loss to eventual runner-up Joe Weil of Burns to win his final two matches in consolation to place fifth. Bronson beat Andrew Farrell of Nyssa in the second round of consolation and HRV teammate Connor Tennant in the match for fifth place. Tennant won one of three wrestled matches for the Eagles and placed sixth. Caden Harbaugh placed fifth for HRV at 220.
At 285, Hood River’s Omar Sedano-Perales scored 10 team points with his sixth-place finish. He won two of his four wrestled matches, including a pin over Trey Charlton of Enterprise in the second round of consolation. Eventual winner Jesse Aragon of Nyssa topped Sedano-Perales in the quarterfinals. Aragon won the Class 3A OSAA state title at 220 in 2022, attesting to the strength of the Pendleton tourney field.
Hood River received team points from throughout the lineup. At 106 pounds, Romeo Castillo was fourth with one win in three of his wrestled matches. His victory came in the consolation semifinals, a 15-9 decision. Teammate Leyton Adams placed fourth at 113 pounds, having to wrestle teammate Connor Farlow in the semifinals. Adams split his four matches, winning in the first round over Luis Rosales of Baker and in the consolation semifinals over Ryan Glascock of Burns. Also at 113, HRV’s Joshua McLaughlin was sixth.
Hood River had four wrestlers at 126 pounds, led by Jesus Ortega-Laur’s fourth-place finish. Ortega-Laur won his first two wrestled matches, the first by fall and the second over teammate Robert Wood (11-4 decision). In the semifinals, Kale Cornell of Burns beat Ortega-Laur; Cornell was the Class 3A state champion at 113 pounds last season as a freshman. Wood placed sixth, splitting his four wrestled matches.
Also at 126, HRV’s Maddix Neslson won one of four wrestled matches, that coming against teammate and training partner, Gavino Lica, in the third round of consolation.
Jacob Smith and Abelardo Gomes Gordian competed at 132 pounds for the Eagles. Smith placed fourth, winning his first two matches (of five) before losing in the semifinals to Hazen Johnson of Burns. Gomes Gordian won one of four wrestled matches. At 145 pounds, HRV’s Jack McLaughlin won two of his four matches, including his final match of the tourney by fall.
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