SACRAMENTO – Ripon’s Tristan Smith battled his way to the 285-pound championship bout Saturday against Nic Iversen of Ukiah and lost 6-1 in the Tim Brown Invitational at the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium.
Smith had problems dealing with the strength of Iverson.
“The kids that I beat were good but they were not exceptional,” Smith said. “He (Iverson) was exceptional in the way he was extremely strong, and on strong people it is extremely hard to do moves against them and I couldn’t do the moves that I wanted.
“Most people are not able to stop my move when I counter but he somehow rolled me through. He stopped me. I was extremely surprised because that has happened maybe once or twice.”
Smith started the day one match away from a medal, and he wasted little time in securing the hardware when he pinned Zach Brazell of El Dorado-Placerville. He followed that with a 4-0 semifinal pin over Tyler Burris of Henley-Oregon.
After a thrilling 6-3 consolation quarterfinal win for Sierra’s Branden Rullan over Rocklin’s Logan Bik, Rullan was forced to withdraw due to a re-aggravated knee injury. This gave Rullan a sixth-place finish.
Rullan was leading Bik 3-1 with 23 seconds left when Bik took him to the mat, tying the score at 3-3. Rullan’s knee forced him to stay down after the two went out of bounds, and after a minute of injury time Rullan took the down position on the mat.
Rullan managed to escape to take a 4-3 lead, and despite his knee he managed a takedown as time ran out.
“I wish I could have tried to wrestle for third,” Rullan said. “But I couldn’t because I want to try and get healthy for league and maybe a chance to go to state.
“This is disappointing because I really worked hard to get here. The coaches said they were proud of me but I really wish I could have wrestled on.”
Rullan opened in a quarterfinal bout with No. 1 state-ranked Devon Turner of Dixon. Turner dominated before pinning Rulan, sending him to the consolation bracket. Facing elimination, Rullan defeated Lodi’s Dylan Crawford 7-4 to ensure a Top 8 finish.
Ripon’s Donny Fontillas (113) needed two wins to secure a medal. He got the first one with a 10-4 decision over Steven Decker of Castro Valley before being tripped up by Oakmont’s Joshua Vega 3-1.
This ended the tournament for Fontillas but as a sophomore he was happy with his top-12 finish.
“I am pleased with the way I wrestled,” Fontillas said. “This was my first trip to Tim Brown and I had some good matches.”
Ripon coach Glen White was pleased with the day’s outcome.
“Tristan wrestled really well,” White said. “The last match was a tough match against a really tough kid. We had the same match last year for third place and lost to him. He is a very tough kid and I assume we will be seeing him again, hopefully at the state tournament.
“We are really happy with Donny. He is only a sophomore and he is one of the hardest workers in our room and it is starting to show. He sees what level he needs to be at and he is not afraid of the work.”
Lady Tigers Tournament
Tokay High School
Camille Randolph (172 pounds) placed sixth after going 2-2. A sophomore in her first year of wrestling, she wrestled well for her first big tournament.
