Members of the Tonasket Tigers Wrestling get ready to celebrate their team win following their annual Apple Pie Tournament. Submitted photo

TONASKET – A very successful Apple Pie Tournament held at Tonasket High School where 15 teams were represented.

The home team, the Tonasket Tigers, came away as the team champions with 228 points, followed by Davenport, 135; then Liberty (Spangle), 134 and Royal, 116.

Individual champions for the Tigers were: Aaron Polito, Tyge Plank, Cris Rodriguez and Ameron Bretz. Finishing with second-place honors were: Danny Depaz, Matthew Donaglia, and Granger Sutton. Coming in third were: Gerardo Hernandez, Logan Stucker and Jayton Caddy. Others competing for Tonasket were Miguel Depaz, Michael Conner, Kase Denison, Gus Ray, Keenan Denison, Gerardo Martinez, Heriberto Martinez, Sedric Mendoza, Casen Clark, Noah Saltz, Evan Vanatta and Miguel Gonzalez.

“A huge thank you to all of our volunteer tournament helpers to who stepped up to make the tournament run smoothly,” said Coach Cole Denison, adding, “Thanks to Shane Grooms for setting up and running the wrestling tournament on track. And, to Kelly Denison and helpers for making the Apple Pies to hand out to the champions of the tournament. Also thank you to the fans who came to support these hardworking young men.”

The previous week, the Tigers had another good weekend for the boys as they split forces to compete at two different tournaments.

“We took a group to the very tough Gut Check tournament in Kent where we finished in the top seven (tied with Granger and Yelm) out of 56 teams,” said Denison

Gerardo Hernandez, 113, battled his way to third place; Ameron Bretz, 170, took fifth; Daniel Depaz, 106 and Cris Rodriguez, 152 each took seventh place. Others who competed tough for the Tigers were Matthew Donaglia, Aaron Polito, Keenan Denison, Tyge Plank and Granger Sutton.

The other group travelled to Warden to wrestle in the Jeremiah Schmunk Invitational. Jayton Caddy, 152, took third. Others who wrestled were; Miguel Depaz, Kase Denison, Gerardo Martinez, Heriberto Martinez, Logan Stucker, Gus Ray, Casen Clark, Noah Saltz and Mica Gleason.

“All of our wrestlers were definitely put to the test this weekend and weaknesses exposed. The good news is we have time to work on these as we approach the post season. They are all ready to work hard toward making these improvements. Great job men.” said Denison.