Reser's Tournament of Champions Sunday, February 04, 2007

Brent Parks of Hermiston High School inverts Redmond's Austin Enoch in the 140-pound championship match at the Reser's Tournament of Champions in Hillsboro on Saturday. Enoch, the top seed in the weight class, took the title with a 10-8 decision.

The Reser's Tournament of Champions is an annual two-day invitational wrestling meet for twenty of the top high school teams in Oregon. Unlike the state championship tournaments, where schools are sorted into six classes based on size, the TOC pits schools of all levels against each other. Titleists at the Tournament of Champions are unquestionably the top wrestlers in the state.

While Hermiston didn't have any individual champions, it ran away with the team title. Teams score points for every win their wrestlers record, with extra points given for pins and technical falls. Hermiston, a perennial wrestling powerhouse, racked up 186.5 points. Roseburg finished second with 121.5 points, with West Linn just behind at 120.5.

On Jan. 27 I covered the Reser's Tournament of Champions for Trillium Media Services. It was a pretty successful weekend for us—we licensed images to the (Pendleton) East Oregonian, Hermiston Herald, Redmond Spokesman, and Beaverton Valley Times, and had interest from a number of other papers across the state.

R.J. Pena (top) of Sprague High School puts the hurt on Culver's Miguel Baltazar in the 125-pound championship match at the Reser's Tournament of Champions in Hillsboro on Jan. 27, 2007. Pena, who some polls rank as the top 125-pound wrestler in the country, pinned Baltazar at 2:32 to win the title. Pena pinned all five of his opponents in the tournament.



Hermiston's Josh Barraza falls under the control of Scott Shugert from Oregon City in their 285-pound semifinal match. Shugert, the number one seed in that bracket, defeated fifth-seeded Barraza 3-1 to advance to the final, where he beat Newberg's Judd Brown to capture the title.







(For another photo from the event, see this earlier post.)