Rich Rautenstrauch/Chieftain Wallowa heavyweight senior Micah Fuller (farthest from the camera) wrestles Taylor Tandy of Imbler during the Jan. 7 Border Battle. Fuller won the match with a pin.

On a night when wrestlers in only one weight division completed a full three rounds of wrestling, a team composed of grapplers from Union, Elgin, and Imbler high schools outscored a team made up of wrestlers from all three Wallowa County high schools, 48-34, in a dual wrestling meet held Jan. 7 in Wallowa.

With the exception of one forfeit received by each team and one 10-point major decision, 11 of the 14 weight classifications were settled by pin. And five of those pins came in the first round.

Possibly for wrestling enthusiasts, the biggest drama was not contingent on who would win a match, but if a pin would beat round’s end.

At 145 pounds, Joseph’s Raymond Seal was winning his match over Elgin’s Tanner Owen handily, yet could not register the desired pin until one second remained in their three-round tussle, or at the 5:59 mark. In similar fashion with opposite results, Enterprise’s 152-pounder Zyler Hermans was within one second of disentangling and moving on to round three when Imbler’s Tyler Tandy pinned his shoulders to the mat at 3:59.

The solitary match that went the entire three rounds was between Joseph’s Jared Wilcox and Elgin’s Jordan Vermillion at 160 pounds. Wilcox was in control throughout, yet settled for a 10-0 major decision and not a pin.

Wrestlers from Wallowa County who pinned their opponents were Clayne Miller (106 pounds) and Cole Farwell (113 pounds) of Enterprise, and Wallowa’s Micah Fuller at 220 pounds.

Wallowa mat man Cameron Salmon scored six points for the local team at 138 pounds where he drew a bye, while losing their matches by pin were Enterprise’s Nate Anton (120 pounds) and Gotro Thamadrit (132 pounds), plus JoHi wrestlers Lars Skovlin (126 pounds), Cole Kiesecker (170 pounds), Riley Warnock (182 pounds) and Ben Lopez (195 pounds.)

Union County’s forfeiture came at the 285-pound heavyweight class.