By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
SILVERTON, Ore.– Silverton’s Ryder VanDeweghe was faced with a challenge.
He fell in the 190 pound bracket Semi-Finals, falling to Crater’s Ryland Walters by tach Fall and he could have called it a day. But Vandeweghe answered the call in stride.
With a positive mindset, he went to work Saturday evening at the Jack Berger Invitational at Silverton High School. With a 3-0 victory over Lincoln Kemper, he set himself up for third-place at 190 pounds against Mid-Willamette Conference foe Woodburn’s Phillip Price.
Price got a first round takedown on Vandeweghe, but Vandeweghe responded. An escape towards the end of the first round got the sophomore on the board going into the second round trailing 3-1.
From there, it was all VanDeweghe. He eventually took a 5-3 lead en route to a second round pin on Phillips to close out the match, finishing third in the tournament.
“A lot of times you get down and you start getting down on yourself as well. But you got to have a positive mindset. Phillip Price is a really great wrestler and I knew that if I could focus up on my moves and what I can do, I can end up with the win,” said VanDeweghe. “Taking a loss in the semi’s , just using that as fuel moving through the next rounds. Eventually winning and taking third-place at a hard tournament with a lot of good teams. A lot of good competition.”
VanDeweghe was one of two Foxes who finished third at the Jack Berger Invitational. The other being Josh Bishop at 120 pounds.
Bishop set the tone from the start and rolled to a 11-1 victory over Beaverton’s Noah Fleming. Bishop rebounded well after his semi-final defeat to HIllsboro’s Dominic Ojeda with back-to-back victories to close out the tournament on Saturday.
“There’s a lot of things that go into it, you just have to break him down and I need to do a better job with that. Bar works, two-on-one tilt works and I pinned him at the end,” Bishop said of his third-place match. “It’s a really big confidence booster and I kind of needed that.”
Bishop and Vandeweghe were two of five Silverton wrestlers who placed, and another three won the Consolation Bracket Finals as the Foxes finished third as a team.
On Friday, Sofie Baldridge finished second at 140 pounds.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
