Roseburg wrestlers win state championship

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Story Published: Feb 18, 2007 at 12:08 PM PDT

By Dan Bain

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Indian coach Steve Lander was awarded the class 6A coach of the year honors prior to the champioship round.

And then his wrestlers went out and won it in fine fashion with three of their four wrestlers in the finals bringing home individual titles.

Defending state champion Mitchell Lofstedt started it off in the 112 pound division, and he escaped from a near pin to rack up a 12-5 victory over Jacob Kaufman of Newberg.

It was scary for awhile, but Lofstedt dominated in the end.

"I just got out of position and I tried to go for a throw I don't practice too much, and he got me on my back and caught me."

That pretty much clinched the team title but the Indians weren't done.

Niko Karpontinis was next at 160 and he shuts out Mitch Sturdevant of Newberg 7-0, and the senior was fired up.

"I am the most excited I've ever been in my whole life, I'm so excited I could wrestle another match.

Then In the 215 pound class John Forrester capped off the dream season with another great effort.

He led all the way in winning 11-3 over Josh Armstrong of McMinnville.

"I wanted to just stay quicker than them because I was a little bit smaller than all the other 215 pounders. So my outside singles were working."

Coach Steve Lander was proud of all of his wrestlers that contributed to the title run.

"We had 8 placers and there's 10 other kids that were here that wrestled their hearts out and supported their teammates."

Roseburg won the team title for the first time since 1974.

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