A pair of Rainier High School boys wrestlers walked away from the Tacoma Dome with not only hard-earned hardware at Mat Classic XXXVI but valuable insights into what it means to be resilient.
Senior Zander Peck placed third in the 1B/2B/1A 157-pound bracket Saturday, Feb. 23 for his second straight top-three state finish, while junior Dorien Cano overcame a quarterfinals loss to win three of four in the consolation round to earn fourth at 175.
Rainier head coach Chris Holterman believes there is no harder match in the sport than the match immediately following a loss in the Mat Classic semifinals.
Peck, the reigning state runner-up coming into Mat Classic XXXVI, learned that the hard way at the Tacoma Dome. He went toe-to-toe with Chewelah’s Dakota Katzer in the 157-pound semifinals in a back-and-forth match but was unable to score a point in the third period and lost by decision 5-4.
Peck, who had high hopes of being the first male Mountaineer to win a state title since Brody Klein in 2020, sat defeated on the mat after the loss, exhausted from a match that went the full length. He had a choice to make: give in to fatigue or continue to battle for a medal.
“I’ve heard everybody say that the person you are is the one when you fall, and I decided to be the person that was going to get up and give everything I had to come back and succeed,” Peck said.
He answered the gut-wrenching defeat with a 5-2 decision victory against Northwest Christian Colbert’s Hudson Somes in the consolation semifinals. Peck then earned his 41st and final win of his senior season over Willapa Valley’s Lucas Swogger in the third-place match, outscoring his opponent 14-2 in the third period after just a 1-0 advantage through the first two.
“It’s just resiliency. It’s about being tenacious and being able to hold on to what you want to do and have that passion toward what you’re doing,” Peck said. “I wouldn’t trade what just happened in that third-place match for anything in the world. Honestly, I’d rather have that over the state championship because that memory is going to live on for the rest of my life. I think it’s important to be able to win all the time, but being able to bounce back after losing and succeed against all odds is what’s important.”
Cano had a similar predicament to Peck. He fell short in the quarterfinals after a strong first day of wrestling on Friday, and he was much closer to letting his exhaustion win than his senior teammate. But he won three straight in the consolation bracket and concluded his season with a fourth-place medal.
“It was hard right after I lost. I’m not gonna lie, I thought about losing my next match so I could be done. I was pressed that I lost,” Cano said. “After I won that first [consolation match], I thought to myself, ‘What’s the worst that could happen if I just went out there and wrestled these last few matches with my all?’ That’s what I did, and in the end, I feel like it was worth it.”
No Mountaineer wrestled more in the Tacoma Dome than Cano, who went 5-2 over the weekend in his third trip to state. He set a new personal best at the Mat Classic after placing sixth as a freshman in 2023 and failing to place in 2024.
Holterman said Saturday’s matches proved how mentally tough his student athletes are and how champions don’t always finish in first place.
“You’re coming off of losing that match and mentally, it’s really hard to get back up and into that next match. That’s why you see so many kids lose in the semifinals and lose that next match,” Holterman said. “The fact that they lost and came back and got the win, it says a lot about the maturity of those kids and how tough they are mentally.”
Rainier finished with 77.5 points, good for 16th out of 59 schools in the boys 1B/2B tournament and first among teams in the Central 2B League. Evan Delaney, 106, Jayden Alegarbes, 132, Addison Poole, 138, Dominic Cano, 175, Steven Johnston, 190, Jace Lavender, 215, and Blake Roberts, 215, each added to the Mountaineers’ point total. Roberts, Alegarbes, and Poole advanced to the third round of the consolation bracket but could not advance further.
