Pin Parade

   The Dodge City High School Red Demon wrestling team broke out of winter break with a vengeance Tuesday and took a convincing 65-10 win over the Larned Indians.
    Five Demon wrestlers pinned their opponents, and 171-pounder Eli Evinger won via a tech fall to inflate the lopsided margin for the Demons after the three-week layoff.
    "Wrestling-wise, we took it to them," said DCHS coach Lars Lueders. "The whole time we were wrestling hard, and that was good to see."
    Larned did not bring wrestlers in either the 103- or the 112-pound class, so Dodge was spotted a 12-point lead going into the night's first match, which pitted Dodge's 119-pounder Carlos Chairez against Larned's Damon Chilcott. Chairez made quick work of Chilcott, pinning him in just 49 seconds and setting the tone for the rest of the dual match.
    But the early pin wasn't the quickest for the Demons. In the last varsity match of the night, Demon heavyweight rumbler Jeremiah Lee pinned Larned's Cameron Bubb in 30 seconds.
    Justin Blundell, Adam Ybarra and Jesse Trent all won by fall for the Demons as well. As a kicker, all four junior varsity matches on the night ended in Dodge pins.
    But it wasn't all roses for the Demon grapplers. Hunter Edwards, a 135-pounder who came into the season ranked fifth in the state in his weight class, was forced to forfeit his match with Larned's Ryder Eakin after suffering an injury to his right shoulder while trying for a reversal on the mat.
    "That might be a blow for us," Lueders said. "Obviously we don't quite know the extent of the injury just yet — it could be any number of things at this point."
    The Demons continued their dominance in the dual after Edwards' sudden injury, and they even added a wrestler to a weight class that had remained vacant in the team lineup up to this point in the season. Freshman Freddy Hernandez filled out the Demons' roster in the 189-pound division and picked up his first varsity win, 11-6 over Larned's Jonathan Peterson.
    "He's been at the JV level all year, and we thought he had worked hard enough in practice to move up," Lueders said of Hernandez's effort, which added three points to the Demons' cause Tuesday. "He stepped up, battled the whole time, capitalized on some of his opponent's mistakes and got his first varsity win."
     The win comes before Dodge travels to Salina on Saturday for the Salina South Invitational tournament.
    "It's a really good tourney," he said. "I was glad to see us get in there and knock some of the rust off before we head to Salina."
    Lueders said his wrestlers could see opponents like Olathe North and Manhattan at state, should they make it that far in the postseason.