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Steamboat Springs — In their final home event of the season, Steamboat Springs' wrestlers bounced back from four early losses against Delta to beat Battle Mountain with a team score of 24-18.

The Sailors opened up against the Huskies in the 119-pound class with Derek Morris' quick pin in 1 minute, 14 seconds over Myles Semkowocz.

"That kid can bridge like crazy," Battle Mountain coach Mike Anderson said. "He'll be exciting to see at regionals."

Steamboat coach Sean McCarthy noted Morris' ability to respond with "great mental toughness" to an earlier loss to Delta's Aaron Lujan.

Ben DeLine took even less time to jump on his Battle Mountain opponent, pinning Jorge Eufrico in 54 seconds. DeLine, who was wrestling a weight-class up in both matches at 152 pounds, also lost a tough opening match to Delta's Luke Laurita.

"That Delta kid was tough as nails, but DeLine can come back and show that he's raring to go," McCarthy said.

Cody Harris rounded out the Sailors' performance in the 171-pound class with a pin over Mason Babcock in 59 seconds.

Battle Mountain was able to make up some ground with Julian Quintana's pin of Steamboat's Michael Badaracca in the 130-pound class.

"Last time they wrestled in Eagle Valley, Julian pinned him in the first period," Anderson said, noting Badaracca's improvement.

Battle Mountain ended the match with its most impressive individual victory over Steamboat. Wrestling up from the 215-pound class to the heavyweight division, Battle Mountain's Billy Shue managed to pin Lane Shipley in 2:56.

"He's the biggest kid in our room," Anderson said of Shue, a junior who beat Steamboat's Alex Centner at regionals last year to take fifth place. "We've got to start wrestling him against bigger kids like that to get his confidence up."

Although Shipley celebrated his 18th birthday by signing a letter of intent to play football next fall at Dartmouth College, he could not come back from a third-period loss to Delta's Andrew Poe to beat Shue. Recently returning to the sport, Shipley said he hadn't wrestled in front of home crowd since "fifth or sixth grade."

McCarthy pointed to Mader's "war of attrition" with Delta wrestler Tyler Gieck in the 135-pound class as the night's most significant in terms of regional seedings.

Tied, 4-4, in the third, Mader opted to take a penalty point to get Gieck back on his feet.

"It put me behind, and it meant I had to go for the takedown to win, but I knew I had it," Mader said. "With 30 seconds, he gave me enough to take him down and it wasn't enough time for him to escape."

Mader's ensuing last-minute takedown put him up 9-5 for the win.

With only six wrestlers, Steamboat had to forfeit five weight classes against Delta, resulting in a 54-9 team loss.

Steamboat heads to the two-day Tournament of Champions today and Saturday in Vernal, Utah.