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Colleyville teen second in freestyle at Southern Plains
By Heidi Pederson 6/10/2001
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
CARROLLTON - Colleyville's Josh Sandoval had gone into the Southern Plains Regional Wrestling Championships expecting to do better in the Greco-Roman competition than in the freestyle.
The 13-year-old Sandoval, who said he prefers the upper-body emphasis of Greco-Roman, won the schoolboy 95-pound division in Greco-Roman at R.L. Turner High School on Friday. But when he took second place in the freestyle division Saturday, he was disappointed. Sandoval pinned Missouri's Ryan Moyer, who eventually took first, early in the freestyle competition, but got second place based on points after the round-robin portion of the tournament.
"I feel good and bad, I guess," he said. "I wrestled better than I thought I would in freestyle, but I came close to winning so it's hard [to accept] that I didn't."
Sandoval was one of almost 700 wrestlers to compete in the tournament, which featured Greco-Roman and freestyle divisions in midget, novice, schoolboy and cadet age groups. The top three finishers in each cadet class qualified for the prestigious USA Wresting Cadet Nationals in Fargo, N.D., next month. The wrestlers in the other age groups qualified for their respective national tournaments by competing in this tournament.
Sandoval's 10-year-old brother, Jeremy, placed second in the novice 65-pound division yesterday. Arlington's Lance Schilling, 13, also took second in the schoolboy 120-pound class. Schilling's only loss was to four-time national champion Neil Erisman of Kansas, 12-7.
"[Erisman's] dad was talking to me beforehand telling me what he'd done. He was trying to intimidate me," Schilling said. "He got me a little worried, but in the middle of the first [period] I started using my shots and getting a lot more aggressive."
Keller 12-year-old Matthew Lupardus, a former national champion in folkstyle, which is used in UIL and NCAA competition, placed third in the novice 130-pound class.
Team Oklahoma's Joey Miller, one of the few girls entered in the tournament, took second in the schoolboy 75-pound class. The 12-year-old Miller, of Woodward, has placed in national folkstyle tournaments previously but placed in a freestyle tournament yesterday for the first time.
Oklahoman Brandon Shelton proved one of the stars of the cadet class. Shelton, 14, followed his win in the 103.5-pound Greco-Roman division by taking the freestyle class.
Heidi Pederson, (817) 685-3872