It wasn't the mark Crookston wanted to leave the State Wrestling Tournament at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn. with, but the Pirates left a mark nonetheless.
Junior Anthony Caputo finished fourth place at 145 pounds with an 8-5 loss early Saturday afternoon to Cole Kavitz of Medford.
Senior Mariano Portillo fell in the championship match of 135 pounds with a 4-2 loss to Curt Maas of Medford.
"We were close but close doesn't cut it in the final round," said coach Chad Hitchen. "It was nice to have people in the final session. Mariano was our first finalist since Jason Perala about 12-13 years ago. When I look at it though, that's the best we could've done."
Portillo nearly took home the state championship as he took down Maas for two points with about 30 seconds left in the third period and had him on his back but couldn't quite pin his shoulders to the mat. Maas managed to hang on for the slim victory.
Mariano Portillo finishes his high school wrestling career with 160 wins, which puts him second behind his brother Javier, who has 193 career wins.
“Mariano just got physically outmatched,” said coach Hitchen. “That kid was a lot stronger than Mariano. Mariano scored a late reversal in the third period and put him on his back," noted coach Hitchen. "I felt there could've been a two-point near fall there. All in all, we can't speculate like that.
"Medford had four kids in the finals. They probably do a lot of work together. I saw in an article the Medford coach made a comment that he said Curt Maas and his twin brother do workouts that are 'crazy.' They are pushing themselves and obviously those kids got better through hard work. We work hard ourselves but there's always someone out there that works harder."
Caputo took to the mat a few hours before Portillo and had just as much of a battle on his hands. He trailed 2-1 after the first period and trailed just 4-3 late in the second period before Kavitz took him down for a last second two points. Caputo tried desperately in the third period to score points but Kavitz managed to tie him up and hold on for third place.
Caputo lost to Kavitz 9-7 in the quarterfinals.
"The nice thing for Anthony is he's got one more year and a lot of determination," said coach Hitchen. "He got taken down three times in both matches. Anthony took him down one more time in the first match. Kavitz was better on his feet. The matches were very similar with score and style. When we did get a take down he would escape from us."
