Dodge beats cancer, sets season debut
Thursday, January 13, 2005
The 34th annual Clark County wrestling tournament will be Friday and Saturday at Columbia River High School and will include the return of Heritage’s Mark Dodge, the top seed at 189 pounds.
Dodge, a Clark County champion in 2003 and 2004, was diagnosed with cancer in the fall and was not expected to wrestle this season.
“If you would have asked me a week ago, I would not have expected this, “Heritage coach Donnie McPherson said. “He’s done with chemo now and this is something he really wanted to do. He’s an incredible young man.
Dodge can become one of a handful of three-time Clark County champions, but he has not wrestled competitively this season. He also enters what may be the tournament’s strongest weight class. Sharing the bracket are Mountain View’s Brandon Richardson, who lost to Dodge in the 2004 finals; Columbia River’s Zach Little, the Pacific Coast Championships runner-up; and state-meet veteran Brad Bacon of La Center.
Heritage has won four consecutive Clark County titles and figures to be pushed by Battle Ground, Evergreen and Columbia River. The premier finals match could come at 135 pounds, where Heritage’s Peter Barnes (fourth in the state and county champion in 2004) and Battle Ground’s Trevor Hall (third in the state, second in the county) share a bracket.
Other returning champions are: Battle Ground’s Anthony Hayes (112), Columbia River’s Kyle Bounds (152), Evergreen’s Cory Vombaur (130), Heritage’s Jake Farmer (152), La Center’s Aaron Carr (140) and Ridgefield’s Travis Draper (112) and Caleb Patee (145).
The deepest classification may be at 160 pounds, where five state-meet veterans share the bracket. Top-seed Richard Copsey of Camas placed fifth in the 2004 3A tournament and was the county runner-up. Other state veterans in order of seeding: Columbia River’s Brandon Higdon, Battle Ground’s Andy Buck, Mountain view’s Steven Werner and Ridgefield’s Bryan Hugo.
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