JOHN DAY — The Grant Union/Prairie City wrestling team took home a pair of top-five district places over the past few weeks. The first was a second-place finish in a district dual meet, and the second was a fourth-place finish in the district tournament.

The district dual tournament was held in Echo on Friday, Jan. 27, in preparation for the Special District 3 tournament. The Pros wound up the second-best dual team in the district, losing to eventual champions Culver 49-24 in the opening round of the tournament and then again in the final by a similar 50-24 scoreline.

The Pros would string together three straight dual wins in between those losses, however. The first was a 57-22 drubbing of Heppner in the second round.

Next the Pros dispatched Irrigon in a close 42-36 matchup. The Pros then thoroughly dominated Enterprise/Wallowa 60-24 in the semifinal to set up the championship dual with Culver.

Two weeks later the Pros would be in action again in Culver at the 2A/1A Special District 3 tournament, held on Friday, Feb. 10, and Saturday, Feb. 11. The Pros would leave the district tournament with a fourth-place finish while qualifying six individual wrestlers for the state tournament with another two possible qualifiers.

While the Pros did not have an individual district champion in 2023, they did have three runners-up in Taylor Parsons at 126 pounds, Rylan Cox at 225 pounds and Lucas Wolf at 285 pounds.

Third-place finishers for the Pros were Frankie Beam at 106 pounds, Jack Strong at 152 pounds and Alex Finley at 170 pounds. Possibly heading to state are fourth-place finishers Mason Benge at 145 pounds and Riddick Hutchison at 182 pounds.

Depending on how events shake out at other league tournaments, Benge and Hutchison could qualify for state as fourth-place finishers. Grant Union head coach Andy Lusco said he’ll know whether either made it by Wednesday, Feb. 15.

The Pros racked up 152 team points in the district tournament, good for fourth place. The Pros were just behind third-place Elgin, which finished with 161 team points.

Second-place Enterprise/Wallowa finished with 164.5 team points. Everybody was chasing eventual champions Culver, which finished with a jaw-dropping 333.5 team points.

Lusco said he was proud of the way his team wrestled at the district tournament, noting that getting eight possible wrestlers into the state tourney isn’t an easy thing to do. Lusco did acknowledge that he’d have liked one individual champion, however.

“It would have been nice to get an individual champion there. We had three runners-up, but they’ll get their chance at state. All three of them could wind up in the finals at state,” Lusco said.

Grant Union’s eight state qualifiers will head to Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Portland for the OSAA state wrestling tournament, held from Thursday, Feb. 23, to Saturday, Feb. 25.