This weekend the Arlington Wrestling team went off to State to prove once more why they are a growing powerhouse. They sent 3 girls and 7 boys to wrestle and to try and bring home some hardware.

After the first round of wrestling matches, Arlington had Gavin Rork (’18), Colton Ferro (’17) and Tristan Emery (’17) looking at a promising start from the boy’s side with first round wins. Jordynn Mani (’17) and Rachel Sherson (’17) started off great on the girls side too.

When the second round of matches finished, Arlington had only one wrestler with a shot at a state championship, and that was Emery in the 285 weight class. He would move on to the semifinals the next day. After two tight matches, Rork, who lost to Christian Freund from Kelso, who ended up winning the state title, and Ferro, who lost to third-place finisher Brian Pullman from Squalicum, were placed in the consolation brackets. Mani and Sherson, who also lost their second matches, were placed in the girl’s consolation brackets as well.

In the second day of wrestling action, Rork fought his way up to the third place match, where he had to go up against crosstown rival, Riley Van Scoy from Stanwood. In what ended up being a close match up all the way until the last second, Van Scoy came out with the win and Rork took home the fourth place finish. Ferro in the 195 weight class won his first match up but was not so lucky in the second, where he ended up receiving a concussion and having to forfeit his fifth place match. He came out with a sixth place finish overall to cap his senior season. Mani ended up getting seventh place and Sherson got eighth.

And then there was Emery.

I talked to Emery’s brother, Tanner, who is also a wrestler for the eagles, and he mentioned that his brother’s goal all along was just to get to state. Well, after an exhilarating semifinal match that went into 3 overtime rounds, Emery won an escape point that punched his ticket to the championship match. Emery went on to face a friend of his from Oak Harbor, Samuel Zook, in the final match, where he lost in the second round and got second place in state. Head Coach Gilbertson said that Emery’s success was due to his ability to follow the game plan well.

The Eagles placed 13th on the boy’s side and 56th on the girl’s to close up a successful season under a new head coach. Gilbertson mentioned although he knew that they had lost a lot of talent last year, Arlington still had a lot of depth as a team to continue to do well.