The South Whidbey wrestling team continued its march to a league championship and the state finals in Tacoma with two conference wins this week.

On Jan. 23 the boys beat Sultan 60-24. South Whidbey is undefeated, 3-0 in league, 6-0 overall, while Sultan fell to 0-3 and 1-7.

For the Falcons, Kurt Warwick (103-pound weight class) won by forfeit, Vincent Messina (119) won by fall, Brett Warwick (130) won by forfeit, Aaron Mannie (135) won by fall, James Schorr (140) won by injury default, Ben Morgen (145) won by fall, Richard Rangel (189) won by fall, Darrin Britton (215) won by fall and Trapper Rawls (215) took the win, and six points, by forfeit.

“The guys performed against the Turks as I expected,” Falcon Coach Jim Thompson said. “Richard (Rangel) is starting to get that sparkle back with his win and it really helps the team.”

Morgen had a little problem in his match; each grappler has to wipe the bottom of his shoes on a special cleaning towel before starting.

“My shoes were wet because I didn’t dry them off, and the second we started I slipped when I tried to reverse the guy,” he recalled. “I thought it was kind of funny.”

So how did the incident affect his match?

“I pinned him in 15 seconds.”

Thursday night, the team whomped Lakewood 57-24 to remain in first place.

Pinning their opponents were Messina, Schorr, Long, Trevor Romero and Britton. Morgen won by a technical fall (meaning he scored 15-0 in three rounds) while Mannie won (13-0) via a major decision.

“Neither Ben nor Aaron’s guys wanted to get pinned so they adopted a defensive posture,” Thompson said. “They didn’t really wrestle and scored no points.”

On Wednesday, Jan. 31, the team hosts Cedarcrest in Erikson Gym for all the marbles — the Cascade Conference championship. The Falcons will also celebrate the team’s senior athletes that evening.