Coupeville Sports

Coupeville senior Alex Turner won two of three matches Friday at the state wrestling championships in Tacoma. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

He’s in it for the full run.

Coupeville High School senior Alex Turner, a one-man Wolf wrestling team, won two of three matches Friday at Mat Classic XXXI in Tacoma, keeping alive his quest for a state meet medal.

Surviving day one of the super-sized event, he’ll return to the mats at the crack of dawn Saturday, and is in the mix to finish as high as 3rd place in 1A in the 170-pound class.

Turner opened against Finnegan McClure of Vashon Island and whacked him, hard, claiming a 15-0 technical fall.

His middle match of the day was his toughest, as he fought through three full rounds before being nipped 7-4 by Micah Tenny of Lakeside (Nine Mile Falls).

With his back to the wall, and knowing a second loss would knock him out of the tourney, Turner reached down deep to deliver another smack-down.

Running Juan Perez of Highland off the mat to the tune of a 13-1 majority decision, he capped a day in which he outscored his foes by a combined score of 32-8.

Turner opens Saturday against Jared Pendell of Medical Lake.

Win there, and he moves on to face the loser of a quarterfinal match between Sammy DesRoches of Riverside and Brett Moody of Forks.

Those two are the #3 and #4 ranked 170-pound wrestlers in 1A this season, respectively, and DesRoches finished 2nd at state last season.

Put together another solid run Saturday and Turner could earn the first wrestling state meet medal in CHS history.

To do that, he needs to earn a top-eight finish.

Since Coupeville has never had a wrestling program, Turner, who transferred to Coupeville from South Whidbey for his senior year, trained and traveled with 3A Oak Harbor.

He returned to 1A for the postseason and swept three matches en route to winning a sub-regional title.

After snow and ice wiped out all regional tournaments across the state, the WIAA elected to advance everyone to state, working with 32-athlete brackets in each weight class.

The state plans to return to 16-athlete brackets next season, as in years past.