YAKIMA — Eight pins in 13 matches carried Ephrata past East Valley 63-15 last Thursday, Jan. 29, as the Tigers picked up their second Central Washington Athletic Conference win of the season.

Mike Ramirez (126), Kylan Lus (132), Carter Garcia (150), Adrian Negrete (157) and Danny Wurl (190) all earned first-period pins. Colt Staples (165), Austin Smith (175) and Payton Woods (215) won by fall in the second period.

Nathan Sandoval (120) added a 6-4 decision over Halen Hanson. Louden Leenhouts (106) and Daron Hernandez (285) picked up forfeits.

The Red Devils got first-period pins from Bentley Mattern (113) over Caleb Schooler and Erick Rodriguez Aparicio (138) over Porter Long. Israel Gonzalez (144) beat Tiger Riley Richards in a 7-3 decision.

Ephrata travels to Quincy this Thursday for a 7 p.m. matchup of two teams caught in a four-team, eighth-place tie in the CWAC standings – one of the state's toughest conferences. The Tigers, Jackrabbits, Grandview and Prosser are all stuck at 2-5. None are ranked by Washington Wrestling Network among the state Class 2A's top-10 squads.

But the CWAC's top three are. Toppenish remains unbeaten at 7-0 and ranked No. 2 in the state. No. 3 Othello sits at 6-1. No. 5 Selah is 5-2. 

Comparing CWAC dual results against mutual opponents don't offer much help in predicting who will come out on top in this week's Battle of the Basin, wrestling style.

For example, the Tigers hung tough in a 41-36 loss to unbeaten Toppenish while Quincy got blown out 65-10 by the Wildcats. Ephrata only fared slightly better than the Jacks against Selah (34-38 vs. 35-44), but beat up East Valley by a wider margin (63-15 vs. 49-24).

However, Quincy posted stronger results against Othello (31-43 vs. 28-42), Ellensburg (31-48 vs. 22-50), Prosser (40-29 vs. 37-36) and Grandview (34-42 vs. 27-48).

Thursday's dual is the final league match before districts Feb. 13-14 at Grandview.