3A Wrestling Regional Preview

Here we are folks! We have made it to what I truly believe is the biggest weekend of wrestling of the season, there is no state championships without taking care of business at the regional level.  All the chips are down and not a single wrestler should be over-looked; it is one match at a time and 100% effort.  This week we will look at the regional breakdowns and I’ll mention a couple of matchups that will be interesting to watch that will have state seeding impacts.  Another thing to look for are the last-minute weight drops that could impact brackets or even additions to team rosters from kids that haven’t wrestled much or even at all due to injuries or otherwise.

Region 1

Region 1 is being held at Alameda Internation in Lakewood.  Defending state champs and current top ranked team in 3A, Mullen will be in attendance there.  Other teams looking to be in the region 1 team race may be Jefferson or Holy Family.  This region will feature several stacked weights as well as some key matchups to watch.  First off, the 285-pound bracket will have three wrestlers in the top 6 including #2 Champion Dyes from Mullen and #4 Ben Metzger from Conifer.  Down one weight class at 215 pounds we have #2 and #3 wrestlers, Amani Fuque from Mullen and Camden Austin from Holy Family.  Then at 157 pounds we also have 4 ranked wrestlers in the region including #3 Jospeh Ortiz Jr. from Arvada, #5 Ethan Jordan from Bennett, and #6 Cooper Loth from Mullen.

Region 2

Region 2 action will be at Valley High School.  Team races wise this may be one of the most stacked regions.  Besides host team Valley who currently sit ranked 4^th, there will also be #3 ranked Brush, #8 Fort Lupton, and #10 Fort Morgan as well as University who has spent time inside the top ten.  Individually this region presents us with several stacked weight classes where several ranked wrestlers may not even qualify.  At 138 you have #1 Nick Dardanes from Brush and #3 Josiah Gonzales from Fort Lupton, joined by 4 other ranked wrestlers.  At 165 there is #2 Austin Ley from Brush, he is joined by 4 other ranked opponents including Christopher Galicia, Fort Lupton and Rocky Hoffschneider, Valley.  Finally, at 215 there is #2 Christaun Astorga of Brush and 4 other ranked wrestlers at that weight.  And another interesting match you may see is at 144 where #2 Jeremiah Mills from Fort Morgan may see #3 Daniel Verderaime from Liberty Common.

Region 3

Region 3 is hosted by Grand Valley High School in Parachute.  They will be joined by 6^th ranked Centauri as well as 9^th ranked Gunnison.  Within region 3 there will be a few good matchups to see which way they fall, if they happen to meet up.  The first will be at 120 where #2 Caden Casias from Centauri and #3 Dawsen Drozdik from Delta.  At 126 Cody Casebolt from Gunnison and Jaysen Skeen from Grand Valley.  At 150 you may have Kaeden Martinez from Moffat County square off with Colton Lucero from Pagosa Springs.  At 175 Zach Hedman from Moffat County and Spencer Smith from Centauri.  These all feature wrestlers who are right by each other in current rankings and present big matchups that will impact state seedings and potentially state placings. 

Region 4

Finally, region 4 which is hosted by Pueblo Centennial.  Another stacked region for the team race as it includes 2^nd ranked Alamosa, 5^th ranked Eaton, and 7^th ranked Resurrection Christian as well as La Junta and The Classical Academy who are also teams who have been near or in the top ten this year.  At 106 pounds look for the matchup with #2 Joe Gamez from La Junta and #3 Jeremiah DeLaCerda from Alamosa.  At 113 we have the top two in the state with #1 Blake Hawkins from Eaton and #2 from Alamosa, Anthony Meder.  Another bigtime matchup at 150 pounds you have #1 Dyson Woodward from Alamosa and #2 Samuel Johnson from Salida.  157-pound bracket will feature a total of 7 ranked wrestlers in this region. It will be interesting to see what happens here and if anyone has been planning a weight change to get out of this one.  Finally, at 175 pounds, featuring #2 Ridge Blackwood from TCA and #3 Bryson Leonhardt from Woodland Park. 

I am beyond excited for this weekend of wrestling and will do my best to update next week on how some of this stuff went down.  I will be at region 3 in Grand Valley this weekend to watch.  Again, good luck to all competitors and their families as you all take on this wild journey that is high school wrestling.