After an impressive DPL tournament this past Saturday, Spartans reclaim the City Crown.
At the beginning of the season Head Coach Mike Laurita selected the team’s motto: “The Hunger For more,” based of the team’s desire to repeat as the Denver Public League wrestling champions, and on Saturday, they left no doubt on which team ruled the city.
With a decisive 1st place finish and a total of 245 points, the Spartans had someone place in all 14-weight classes. With Thomas Currington, Cody DeLaBarre, Guillermo Estrada, Matt Francis, Alec Groditski, Robert McMacken, Chris Salazar, Peter Taylor, and Boris Tubic all wining their classification, Anthony Choy taking second, and the third place finishers Leeon Baskerville, Victor Gomez, and Marcus Hoffman finishing strong with a solid performance from Tra Holcomb placing fourth, the team very nearly met a lofty goal set by their coach at the beginning of the day.
“Laurita set a goal for the team to have more points than all the other DPSteams combined. The whole team took that goal seriously and went out and wrestled our best. We didn’t quite reach that goal, but by having everyone place in the top four it was still a fun accomplishment as a team,” said Senior Joey Scarlett.
With East in second place with 115 points, the Spartans easily doubled the nearest opposition’s score. “We wanted to win back to back league titles pretty bad. These guys have worked hard, all season and it’s starting to pay off. We have had ups and downs like any other team, but in the end this is a goal met so we re pretty happy, especially with how the team did as a whole. Everyone did what they had to do. This is also big for the seniors; I am glad we can send them out on this note,” stated Laurita.
With regionals this weekend, many Spartans will be looking for an encore performance in order to make it to the state finals at the Pepsi Center next week. In their way are teams like Pueblo West, Roosevelt and other Western Slope teams that are known for their wrestling pedigree. The Spartans will have to be at their best all weekend, and such a complete team effort like this past weekend’s DPL tournament is a promising step forward toward the impending matches at Montrose.
