Lake Washington, Juanita wrestlers earn top finishes at KingCo tournament

The Lake Washington and Juanita wrestling teams earned top finishes at the KingCo tournament, held Saturday, Feb. 4 at Liberty High School.

The Lake Washington and Juanita wrestling teams earned top finishes at the KingCo tournament, held Saturday, Feb. 4 at Liberty High School.

Lake Washington finished in fifth place overall with 135 points, while Juanita took sixth with 51 points. Mount Si finished first overall with 214.5 points.

Jack Donahue, from Juanita, was honored during the meet with the Hearts without Limits award.

Individually, Juanita’s Thanh Troung finished in third place in the 106 weight class, beating Seth Luton of Bellevue by fall in 3:05. Teammate Phuoc Nguyen took fifth in the 113 class, beating Sammamish’s Rathana Duong 10-1.

Lake Washington’s Austin Flegel was second in the 120 class, losing to Ryley Absher of Mount Si, by fall in 4:39.

Austin Wells, from Juanita, beat Wilkins Melgaars of Mount Si for third place in the 126 class, while Lake Washington’s Benson Hull took second in the 132 class.

Mason Gray finished sixth in the 138 class for the Kangs, losing to Tyler Le of Liberty by fall 1:50. Teammate Saul Del Rio was third for the Kangs in the 145 class, beating Liberty’s Jimmy Andrus by fall 2:47.

Yaroslav Petrechko won the 170 weight class for Lake Washington, beating Mercer Island’s Nick Chandler by fall in 45 seconds. In the same class, Juanita’s Chase Miller took third, beating Sammamish’s Tomas Narvaja 6-4.

In the 220 class, Jack Michels finished on second place, falling to top ranked Jimmy Trull of Bellevue. Kang teammate Andrey Ilnitskiy finished third overall in the 285 class, beating teammate Gabe Olson by fall 5:26.

The top three wrestlers in each class qualified for the 3A Region I competition, to be held on Saturday, Feb. 11 at Skyline High School The first round of competition begins at 10 a.m., with the championship round at 3:30 p.m.

The top four will make the state meet, to be held at the Tacoma Dome Feb. 17-18.