Like nothing they'd seen before
LOREN BENOIT/Press North Idaho College wrestler Hasaan Hawthorne, left, duals with Jerry Mealey of Clackamas Community College in the 149-pound match at NIC.
Clackamas Community College wrestler Jason Shaner tries to fend off Nick Hara of North Idaho College in the 133 pound match at NIC. (LOREN BENOIT/Press)
North Idaho College wrestler Bryce Parson moves around Clackamas Community College wrestler Braedon Orrino in the 157 pound match at NIC. (LOREN BENOIT/Press)
North Idaho College wrestler Dylan Lockwood locks with Clackamas wrestler Elijah Ozuna in the 141 pound match at NIC. (LOREN BENOIT/Press)
COEUR d’ALENE — For his first win under the spotlight of Christianson Gymnasium, North Idaho College sophomore Hasaan Hawthorne sure made it memorable.
“My dad always told me to take what had been frustrating me and take it out on my opponent,” Hawthorne said. “So that’s what I did. I just wanted to get the team on the board.”
Hawthorne, who was born without tibias and had both legs amputated below the knees as a child, took down Jerry Mealey of Clackamas three times, earning a 7-3 decision in their match at 149 pounds Friday night.
“I have to wrestle physical, that’s the way it is,” Hawthorne said. “Getting caught, that happens to me a lot, but I wasn’t going to let someone pin me off that.”
Clackamas, of Oregon City, Ore., and ranked fourth in the latest NJCAA poll, won the dual 34-3 over the 20th-ranked Cardinals.
“They outwrestled us,” NIC coach Pat Whitcomb said. “We can go back and point out some good things, but they outwrestled us. We’ve got to decide what we’re going to do from this. That’s a good team. We’ve got to find a way to come back at weights we need to be at, mix and match, and find the kids that want to wrestle. They outscrambled, outhustled us. What I’m looking for is how we bounce back from this tomorrow.”
Mealey nearly caught Hawthorne on his back in the second period, but Hawthorne was able to escape.
“I just tried to wrestle as hard as possible,” Hawthorne said. “I just wanted to keep building and have a good weekend.”
“He really gets after things,” Whitcomb said. “He’s a third-year guy, intense and wrestled a great match. I’m proud of him.”
“It’s hard, because you don’t get to wrestle someone like that in your entire life,” Clackamas coach Josh Rhoden said. “We tried to gameplan for that, but you can’t. There’s nobody that can give you that look. Credit to Hasaan, you’ve got to look at that and say isn’t wrestling great to give a guy like that an opportunity. It’s awesome to see him out here and compete.”
NIC (2-3) was coming off dual wins against Iowa Western and fifth-ranked Iowa Central last Thursday in Iowa.
“I’ve had one of these before when we had a great weekend in Michigan at the Muskegon Open and the Michigan State Open,” Whitcomb said. “And we come home to face Great Falls (and lost 43-3 at home in 2008), and I think the score was worse, and I’m looking around thinking what just happened. We’ve got to come back. Clackamas has to feel good about this one. We don’t have long to think about this because we’re back here to wrestle again tomorrow and Sunday in Spokane. We’ll see how we react from this one.”
NIC hosts the Cardinal Duals today, facing Umpqua at noon, then Highline at 2 p.m.
“This should sting, and it does,” Whitcomb said. “We’re not all rainbows and sunshine when we win, and terrible when we lose. We’ve got to take things away from this, and we’ve got to take it to heart. When someone comes into your gym and does this to you, and you get another shot at them in their gym in January, what are we going to do about it? What are we going to change?”
Clackamas won four matches by decision, four by major decision and one by pin.
“There was a lot of close matches tonight,” Rhoden said. “We’ll go back and look at how to improve that. We did some things really, really well. Our effort was great, and I was really happy with that. We’ve been preaching that for a month now. We wrestled through some tough spots, but came out with some awesome wins.”
125 — Zeth Brower, Clack, d. Jacob Garrison, 7-2. 133 — Jason Shaner, Clack, md. Nicholas Hara, 13-5. 141 — Elijah Ozuna, Clack, md. Dylan Lockwood, 14-2. 149 — Hasaan Hawthorne, NIC, d. Jerry Mealey, 7-3. 157 — Braedon Orrino, Clack, d. Bryce Parson, 8-2. 165 — Mason McDaniel, Clack, d. Izaiah Duran, 7-3. 174 — Beau Bradley, Clack, md. Jake Malchuski, 16-5. 184 — Joey Daniel, Clack, d. Christian Grover, 8-2. 197 — Darryl Aiello, Clack, md. Hunter Gregerson, 12-4. 285 — Tommy Mommer, Clack, p. Connor Sullivan, 3:56.