Grant Union/Prairie City’s Mariana Kostiuk looks to get to her feet from the bottom position against Vale’s Abby Castro at the Grant Union wrestling tournament. Kostiuk would win the match via pinfall.

The Grant Union/Prairie City boys and girls wrestling team kept their momentum going following their respectable Oregon Classic finishes with a slew of top finishers in the Grant Union tournament on Friday, Dec. 19, at Grant Union High School.

Seven other teams from across Eastern Oregon made their way to John Day for the tournament. Baker, Burns, Vale, Imbler, Crane, Union and Joseph made up the competition along with host Grant Union.

The Prospector boys ended the round-robin tournament with three first place finishers. Among them were defending state champion Taylor Parsons, who pinned his way through the entire 126 pound pool.

Parsons’ longest match at the tournament took all of 1:05. Three of his other pinfall victories were registered in less than a minute.

Taylor Thomas logged a first place finish at 215 pounds, winning all but one of his matches by pinfall. Rolando Moreno also picked up a first place finish at 285 pounds, winning two of three matches in the weight class with one coming via pinfall.

Like Parsons, all of Thomas’ pinfall victories came in under a minute.

Jarrett Waddel and Alex Finley picked up second place honors in the 138 and 215 pound weight classes, respectively. Waddel won all but one of his four matches on the afternoon, with all of his wins coming by pinfall.

Finley wrestled three matches and won two of them in the tournament. Both of Finley’s wins were pinfall victories that saw him spend less than a minute on the mat during each outing.

The Pros also had four third place finishers: Cody Weseman at 113 pounds, Frankie Beam at 120 pounds, Bryan Camacho at 157 pounds and Zack Ostberg at 215 pounds. Mason Benge was the team’s lone fourth place finisher at 165 pounds.

The Grant Union/Prairie City girls finished the Grant Union tournament with three first place finishers. Defending state champion Mallory Lusco had one other girl in the 235 pound weight class and made short work of her, recording a pinfall victory in just 24 seconds.

Zoey Beam also took home first place honors for the Lady Pros in the 110 pound weight class. Beam won all four of her matches by pinfall.

Sivanna Hodge rounded out the Lady Pro first place finishers, coming out on top in the 190 pound weight class. Hodge wrestled two matches at the tournament, pinning both opponents.

Mariana Kostiuk and Macy Carter both logged second place finishes for the Lady Pros in the 125 pound and 145 pound weight classes. Kostiuk won three matches in the 125 pound weight class, all of them by pinfall.

Carter won two of her three matches at 145 pounds in finishing second. One of Carter’s two victories came via pinfall.

Bailey Reeves was the only other Lady Pro to place in the top four, finishing in fourth place in the 130 pound weight class. Reeves wrestled three times, coming up short in every match.

There were no team scores in the round-robin style tournament.

Grant Union head girls wrestling coach Andy Lusco said the girls wrestled hard and the team is almost where it needs to be mere weeks away from the district tournament.

“I think we’re really close,” he said. “We’ve got, like, three or four weeks left and a lot of development will take place in terms of conditioning and skill set, but we were encouraged. We feel like the girls are definitely wrestling the best they have all year, and their conditioning is really on track for where they need to be.”