Miners get no credit

There were a lot of cancellations this past week in the world of high school wrestling in Wyoming. Robert Riddle, the head coach for the Hanna, Elk Mountain, Medicine Bow (HEM) High School wrestling team was happy to get his team to the duals in Southeast.

“For the most part, we won 50 percent of our matches,” Riddle said. “There were a lot of holes in weight classes, so there were forfeits and teams merging.”

The teams that attended the dual besides HEM were Burns/Pine Bluffs, Glenrock, Lingle-Ft. Laramie/Southeast, Lusk, Wheatland, Alliance (NE), Banner County (NE), Bridgeport (NE), Chadron (NE), Gordon-Rushville (NE), Hay Springs (NE), Hayden (CO), Hemingford (NE), Leyton (NE), Mitchell (NE), North Park (CO), Sidney (NE), Sioux County (NE).

Riddle found the tournament a little weird because none of the HEM wrestlers were given credit for their wins.

“Because we were not a part of the original team, all of our team scores didn’t count with the team we were wrestling with,” Riddle explained. “Us, North Park and a couple of other smaller teams, all those points the kids earned did not go to a team’s score, so they just marked them as losses which is bizarre.”

Riddle said several of his wrestlers won matches they were not given any points for.

“Anthony (Solaas) won one and lost one in the 106 pounds, Jared (Nelsen) came out one and one and he wrestled at 145 and 152,” Riddle said. “Sam (Ramirez) had a split in the weight of 145 and Alaina (McNees) split also at 120 pounds. But none of them received points.”

Riddle said the HEM team merged with Banner County because the Miners team is small.

McKaylee Widdison did not wrestle due to an injury and Tom Wagner is out for the season.

“Banner County had a team that was able to wrestle at the heavy end and we had a team that was mostly on the lighter side,” Riddle said. “We matched up pretty well, but they didn’t count any of our matches. It was like an exhibition. They didn’t even register any of our kids for wrestling. I had never seen this before.”

Despite not receiving any credit for their points scored, Riddle was happy with how the wrestlers did.

“The kids wrestled well,” Riddle said. “The matches they lost were close.”

Although the HEM team got to the Southeast Duals without issue, coming back was another story.

“Coming back we ended up spending another night out (due to the weather),” Riddle said. “Such is life.”

Riddle is excited for the team to get more experience at the Carbon Tournament which will be held at the HEM gym.

“I hope the weather holds out and we can get two days of wrestling,” Riddle said. “Then regionals are the following weekend.”