Carson, Douglas take down Vikings

South Tahoe had to pull double duty Wednesday night when the Viking wrestling team took on both the Douglas Tigers and the Carson Senators in a double dual meet at South Tahoe High.

"They're two well-established programs," Viking coach Jack Lopez said. "We knew we had to come out and compete tonight."

The Vikings put up a valiant effort against both teams, but came up short on both accounts.

South Tahoe was severely outmatched against the Senators as Cavin Ross scored the only points for the home team with his pin at the 119-pound weight class. With the six-point takedown, Ross kept his record unblemished on the season at 12-0.

Although the Vikings couldn't muster any more points against Carson in the 70-6 loss, many of the South Tahoe grapplers pushed their matches to the end before falling. That fortitude was not lost on Carson coach Tim McCarthy.

"South Tahoe has gotten a whole lot better," McCarthy said. "The physicalness in their kids has improved a lot.

"Even some of our best wrestlers at 135 and 140 struggled tonight."

The Vikings were able to bounce back and put up a good effort in the second half of the twinbill against Douglas.

South Tahoe jumped out to an early 25-12 lead on the Tigers before fatigue began to creep in.

Early on, STHS got pins from both Cavin Ross and Florencio Munez. Ross pinned his opponent 25 seconds into the match, while Munez stopped his opponent in the second round of his match.

The Viking lead was stretched because of a pair of forfeits by Douglas at the 112 and 135 classes. Jon Monteverde (112) and Brad Ross (135) were credited with the wins.

But as the match wore on, South Tahoe started to fall behind and eventually succumbed 56-24 when the Vikings failed to take any more decisions or pins from the Tigers.

"Those are two fine programs and we're going to take our lumps this year," Lopez said. "We wrestled Douglas the best we could, but we didn't line up against Carson very well because of injuries.

"We'll get our wins this year."

The Vikings travel to Nevada Union to compete in an individual tournament Friday before heading to Sierra Nevada Classic Dec. 29-30 at Reno High.