High School Sports

AUBURN — Joey Palmer makes Tahoma a better wrestling team. He's also made Steven Hopkins a better wrestler.

Together, they hope to lead the top-ranked Bears to their first Class 4A state championship next weekend at the Tacoma Dome. And they'll have plenty of potential help. Tahoma qualified a whopping 15 wrestlers while winning the Region 3 tournament Saturday at Jefferson High School with 303.5 points.

"We have a good shot at it," said Hopkins, who improved to 28-0 with a 10-2 victory over teammate Jesse Vaughan in the 126-pound final. "But everyone has to pull their own weight. Last year, we fell a part a little bit."

Hopkins was willing to shoulder a little of the blame. After winning a state title at 103 as a sophomore, he lost in the 119-pound semifinals last season and wound up fourth. Despite bringing in a tournament-best 11 wrestlers, the Bears finished a disappointing ninth.

"We weren't happy with where we finished as a team," coach Chris Feist said. "We weren't incredibly happy with the way we wrestled that second day."

But it was a young team with no seniors among the state participants. All 11 have a chance to make amends as they return to state.

And Palmer, who moved back to Maple Valley last summer for family reasons after wrestling at Rogers of Puyallup, has a shot to win a second straight state crown. After placing second to Beamer's Ares Carpio at 119 his sophomore season, Palmer captured the 125-pound title last year.

Hopkins and Palmer grew up competing together in Feist's Bear Claw Wrestling Club. The reunion wound up being a rude awakening for Hopkins, who said much of his drive this season has come more from the brutal team workouts with Palmer.

"Most of my motivation this year is with getting beat up by Joey in the beginning of the year," he said. "Getting beat up all the time in practice, I wasn't really used to it, so it kind of made me want to get better."

Palmer still beats up on him, Hopkins admits, "but it's not as bad."

Palmer (27-2), who will wrestle at Oregon State next season, was voted the Region 3 wrestler of the year Saturday and credits his work with Hopkins in part for his own improvement.

"We've been pushing each other," he said.

Palmer has lost just one in-state match this season, when he wrestled up two weight classifications. But he was not one of Tahoma's six regional champions as he injury defaulted to teammate Gabe Boynay in the 132-pound final.

"I'm a little banged up and I want to give my body a rest," he said.

Notes

• In addition to Hopkins and Boynay, the Bears got regional titles from Tim Whitehead (113), Cruz Velasquez (120), Tanner Mjelde (145) and Austin Perry (182).

Tahoma won 3A state titles in 1996 and 1991 and was the 4A runnerup in 2010.

• K.W. Williams of Jefferson improved to 36-1 with a narrow, 6-4 victory over Tahoma's Matt Hopkins (Steven's younger brother) at 195. His lone loss came to top-ranked Kadyn Del Toro from Curtis in the finals of the SPSL tournament over the holidays. Williams, ranked No. 2, placed second at state at 189 last season.

• Kentlake's Colton Marlowe upped his record to 34-2 in taking the 145-pound crown.

• Auburn had a pair of champions in Brian Alonzo (106) and Tilden Sansom (152). Sansom won by injury fault when a teammate hurt his knee. In the SPSL North subregional finals the week before, Tate beat Sansom, 7-2.

• Kentwood's Jonathan Ohashi avenged last week's loss to Seth Mizoguchi of Auburn by winning the 160-pound final. Thomas Kemp of Kent-Meridian also turned the tables on Tahoma's Garrett Autrey at 170 in another rematch.

• SPSL North wrestlers dominated their Narrows League counterparts on the day, sweeping 22 of the 28 spots in the finals and all but two of the titles.