Regional Managers: 12 PISD grapplers move to next round

Leading into Saturday's District 17 Meet, many Plano ISD wrestlers and coaches said it was a race for second place behind multi-time defending state champion Allen.

They were right as the Eagles won a seventh straight district crown.

However, Plano Senior, Plano East and Plano West still accomplished a variety of goals with the Wildcats finishing second, the Panthers placing third and the schools combining for 12 regional qualifiers.

"A lot of people said it was going to be a down year and they overlooked us, but we knew how good we were," said Clay Goodloe, Plano head coach. "We were in a big race with my old coach (East head coach Al Koebke) and I was glad to beat him."

Plano bested East for second place in the team standings, but the competition was close throughout with both advancing five wrestlers to the finals and the Wildcats winning two brackets (Avery Coker at 120 pounds and Michael Kubik at 160) while the Panthers had one champion (Manny Houllemont at 182).

Kubik, ranked No. 5 in the state, was responsible for Allen's lone finals loss as he bested Tracey Eital in the finals.

"I'm not surprised," Goodloe said. "Michael has done an unbelievable job for us this season."

Equally unsurprising was the ascension of Coker to the top of 120 as he has won 16 straight matches. The last of those, a victory over McKinney Boyd's Jared McCormick, earned him the title district champion.

"I feel like I wrestled pretty well today," Coker said. "But really, the whole team did. We knew Allen was a huge favorite, but second place was up for grabs and we were able to get it."

The only other final without an Allen representative was 182 where Houllemont squared off against Plano's Daniel McCaffrey. Houllemont had previously lost to McCaffrey, but was able to exact some revenge Saturday.

"All week I worked on moving my feet, moving my feet, because that's how [McCaffrey] got me last time," Houllemont said. "It was a tough match mentally, but I stayed focused and tried to keep scoring points."

Houllemont advanced to regionals and won Most Outstanding Wrestler for 152-285 because of it.

"This feels great," he said. "I've been close the past two yeas and I finally got it, so I can't wait for the regional tournament."

McCaffrey was in good company as other PISD wrestlers to lose in the finals included West's Dean Roudi (138) and Marc Sender (145), Plano's Erik Neithamer (106) and Austin Krieger (126), and East's Scott Nolan (152), Chase Clemmons (170), Konrad Wahle (195) and Leo Cervantes (heavyweight).

Cervantes may have been in the most nail-biting bout of the day.

Tied 1-1 after regulation, Cervantes' match against Allen's Matt Bryan went to triple overtime before Bryan got an escape with 18.6 seconds remaining for the 2-1 win.

The top two wrestlers in each weight class advanced to regionals, but not all finalists were assured a spot in the next round as several had wrestlebacks. That provided a dramatic finish to the tournament as evidenced by Neithamer, who back flipped after winning his wrestleback.

Roudi didn't have the same energy after his challenge match went down to the wire.

Roudi was tied, 6-6, with less than 10 seconds remaining in the final period, pulling out an escape with two seconds left to capture the 7-6 win.

"The first and second periods were not as strong as I wanted, but I dug it out in the third," Roudi said. "We broke from a scramble and I saw there was about one minute left, so I had an idea of the time and was able to get that escape at the end.

"It was a huge win because making it to regionals was a big goal of mine."

Roudi will be joined by teammate Sender.

"Our goal was to advance three, but we lost some close matches," said Shawn Smith, West head coach. "We didn't have any qualifiers last year, but all of our guys came back and they have taken a lot of lumps to get to this point."

While Roudi survived his wrestleback, Clemmons wasn't as lucky.

He was the lone finalist not to advance after getting pinned by Plano's James Bishop. Bishop was 0-1 at the varsity level coming into the tournament and had to win a challenge match earlier in the week just to make the lineup.

"I never would have thought this would happen," Goodloe said. "Making the varsity is big, but for James to come in like he did and now go on to regionals ... it's incredible."

Bishop was similarly surprised.

"When I challenged for the spot, I never really thought I would get this far," he said. "This is awesome."

Similar sentiments were shared by all 12 PISD qualifiers, but there isn't much time to celebrate as the Region III Meet is Friday and Saturday at the Merrell Center in Katy.

"It's going to be a tough week," Coker said. "A lot of hard practices."

The top four from each weight advance to state, which is Feb. 24-25 at the Delco Center in Austin.

"Our kids worked so hard over the summer, so obviously we feel good about them getting to regionals," Smith said. "And now, everyone is 0-0 again."

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