Daffin, Tonche Lead Sallisaw To 4th At Deer Creek Tourney
by Mike Erwin - Sports Editor
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EDMOND - Outstanding performances from Grant Daffin and Randy Tonche powered the Sallisaw Black Diamonds to a fourth-place team finish last weekend at the Deer Creek Invitational high school wrestling tournament.

Daffin and Tonche both won their respective weight classes and earned a combined 54 team points for the Diamonds.

Sallisaw tallied 175 total to finish two points behind third-place Chickasha. Prattville, Ala., won the team title with 208 points and Glenpool was second with 200.

Daffin won the championship at 130 pounds by going 4-0 at Deer Creek. The sophomore needed just 26 seconds to pin his first opponent. He followed that with two more pins before earning a 9-2 decision against Devon Hare of Comanche.

Tonche, a junior, won the title at 189 pounds, also going 4-0 at the tournament. Tonche won two of his first two matches by fall and then picked up a 3-0 decision against Piedmont's Dillon Giles in the finals.

Sallisaw also got a second-place finish from Tim Humpherys at 112 pounds. Humpherys went 3-1, pining two of his opponents before losing to Deer Creek's Chad Lousberg in the championship bout.

Robert Copeland came in fourth place for the Diamonds. He won two of his four matches, both by fall.

Sallisaw had four wrestlers place fifth in their weight classes at Deer Creek: Colt Sanders, Casey Middleton, Joseph Branham and Derrek Branham.

Sanders pinned Piedmont's Austin Redus in his last match at Deer Creek, to finish with a 3-2 record at 160 pounds. Middleton pinned Deer Creek's Clint Grow for fifth at 171.

Joseph Branham won four of his six matches at 215 pounds, while Derrek Branham also went 4-2 in the heavyweight division.

Blake Johnson, David Hunt, Job Thomas and Blake Rea also earned team points for Sallisaw.

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