UNIVERSITY PLACE — The Wenatchee bowling team finished the first day of competition at the Class 4A state bowling tournament in fifth place out of eight teams, but are in striking distance of the leaders.

The Panthers, who rolled six team games Friday and will come back with 14 baker games Saturday at Narrows Plaza Bowl, trail first-place Emerald Ridge by 280 pins.

“We had five good games, and one bad one right after lunch that really hurt us,” Wenatchee coach Jay Young said. “But we can really move fast in the bakers tomorrow.”

Young said the team averaged team scores of 740-760 (148-152 per bowler) in its first three games, but slumped to a 650 team score in its first game after an afternoon break.

“They did a good job of taking it and coming back,” Young said. “They did what they had to do the rest of the day.”

Wenatchee senior Hannah Sand is the team’s top individual through Saturday, with a score of 969 (161.5 average) through six games. She had a high game of 181.

Puyallup, Rogers (Puyallup) and Shelton are ahead of Wenatchee in the top five.

Moses Lake, the only other East region team in the field of eight, is in last place after the team games.

Wrestling

Big Nine 4A districts at Moses Lake

Wenatchee sits in third place overall and will have eight wrestlers in the semifinals on Saturday in the Big Nine 4A district tournament.

Two of the Panther grapplers, Isaac Gates and Adam Tidd, will wrestle each other in a 130-pound semifinal.

“We wrestled pretty well. I’m happy where we are,” Wenatchee coach Ed Valdez said. “We won the ones we were supposed to win.”

The host Chiefs lead with 114.5 points, followed by Richland at 110 and Wenatchee at 94.5.

Big Nine 3A districts at Pasco

Eastmont is in fifth place after the first day of the Columbia Basin Big Nine 3A district wrestling meet and sent three wrestlers into Saturday’s semifnals.

Eastmont scored 45.5 points. Sunnyside led the meet after the first day with 161.

Nineteen Wildcat wrestlers competed in the tournament, several days after the Eastmont program was reinstated for postseason competition. The Eastmont School District had canceled the Wildcats’ season last month after the infections of four common skin diseases spread to about half of the 36 wrestlers.

Fabian Wickham (103 pounds), Darin Hardgrove (171) and Johnny Martinez (215) advanced to the semifinals of their respective weight classes.

The top four wrestlers in each weight class will advance to next week’s regional tournament.

Boys swim and dive (preliminaries)

Eastmont’s Derek Savage won two races and was a member of a winning relay team during Friday’s district meet preliminaries at Central Washington University.

Savage took first in the 3A 200-yard freestyle with a time of 1 minute, 53.20 seconds. He also won the 300 freestyle with a time of 49.43 seconds.

Eastmont’s 200 freestyle relay team, consisting of Cam Ohrazda, Adam Couey, Braiden Bellinger and Savage, took a top seed into Saturday’s finals with a time of 1 minute, 36.86 seconds.

Wenatchee’s Ryan Gangle won the 4A 100 breaststroke with a time of 1 minute, 6.16 seconds.