Pins, pins and more pins at Havasu wrestling scrimmage

The word of the day at the annual Lake Havasu High School Wrestling Purple and Gold Scrimmage was “pin.”

Twenty-one of the 22 matches between varsity, JV and freshmen Fighting Knights wrestlers were decided by pin Friday.

“As long as they keep fighting, that’s ok. It’s hard for them to be aggressive against each other, they’re friends,” coach JV coach Ted Nesmith. “Nobody disappointed out there. Even when a wrestler was on his back, they continued to fight. That impressed me.”

Excitement came in a trio of matches. Both Cody Tracy and Brandon Vedder – in separate 215-pound matches – went to the air, using the suplex to knock the wind out of their opponents and take wins.

“I’m still learning technique so I really like to use my aggressiveness,” Vedder said. “The win by pin felt pretty good. Hopefully I can do the same thing on Monday.”

The other excitement came early, when Kial Melendez had Ryan Kaiser on his back and looked to be heading to a win in the 103-pound class.

But Kaiser deftly slipped to his left, scored a 2-point reversal and immediately went into a cradle to get the pin and the win.

“His arm was a little too high and that let me flip him,” Kaiser said. “My strategy is to try get the pin as quickly as possible.”

The scrimmage also highlighted something new for the Knights; more athletes are out in the heavier weight classes. There were 10 wrestlers at 215-pounds or heavier in Friday’s scrimmage and all showed speed.

“A lot of the credit for that has to go to head football coach Karl Thompson,” said head wrestling coach Alex Ruiz. “He encourages the football players to come out for wrestling and they work on explosiveness and speed. Now it’s our job to work with them on technique.”

The Knights get right back into action with a home multi Monday. Havasu will play host to Parker, Yuma Kofa and Yuma, all three a history of strong wrestling programs. And Friday’s performance gave Freshmen coach Steven Spangler a reason to be optimistic about the Knights’ prospects.

“No one gave up,” Spangler said. “They al kept pushing to the end, they kept going.”

The multi at the new gymnasium Monday gets underway at 4:30 p.m.

You may contact the reporter at dbell@havasunews.com.