3A Wrestling Regionals Recap and State Preview by Tyler Buhr

Alright wrestling fans, the time has now come. Regionals are all wrapped up and they were of course not short of action and drama. And now the State Championships are here, before we dive into State action lets recap regionals and look back to any interesting developments individually and pertaining to team races. If you are looking for the state brackets click the link below:

Class 3A Boys Wrestling Brackets & Scores

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Regionals Recap

Region 1 may have been a surprise to some to see the team scores where Holy Family came out on top with 203 points. They would be followed by Alameda International, Elizabeth, Jefferson, and then Mullen at 5^th. Let’s look at results from some of those matchups mentioned last week. At 285 Champion Dyes from Mullen would best Conifer’s Ben Metzger in the region finals. At 215 Camden Austin from Holy Family would pin Mullen’s Amani Fuque. Then at the 157 weight where we expected 4 ranked wrestlers to duke it out for positioning, we saw lowest “ranked” wrestler in Sean Johnson from Alameda come out on top, Ethan Jordan from Bennet would take second and Cooper Loth third with Luke Ferland from Elizabeth grabbing that last qualifying spot.
In Region 2 Brush would run away with this one as a team finishing with 258 points. Next would be Fort Morgan 208.5 points, Fort Lipton 192 points, and then Valley at 185 points and rounding out the top 5 was University at 116.5 points. At the stacked 138 bracket Nick Dardanes from Brush would come out on top beating Josiah Gonzales from Fort Lupton by tech fall in the finals. Valley’s Carlos Corral would take third and then Wellington’s Cash Altschwager would grab 4^th. At 165, Valley’s Rocky Hoffschneider would “upset” Christoper Galicia from Fort Lupton in the semis, Hoffschneider would go on to lose in the finals to Brush’s Austin Ley and Galicia would take third over University’s Allen Mix. Then at 144 where we hoped to see #2 and #3 in the state face off, we did in the regional championship where #2 Jeremiah Mills would win by an 11-7 decision.

Region 3 would see Centauri atop the team scores with 194 points, they were followed closely by host team Grand Valley with 184, followed by Delta 166, Rifle 134, and Gunnison with 128.5 team points. Let’s look how those close ranked matchups shook out. At 126 in the regional final, we got Cody Casebolt from Gunnison and Jaysen Skeen from Grand Valley, Casebolt would take this one on a 4-1 decision. I had said expect to see Kaeden Martinez from Moffat County and Colton Lucero from Pagosa to square off at 150 pounds, we did get this matchup but at the 144-pound weight class as both wrestlers dropped down, they went at it in the regional finals where Lucero would take the 13-6 decision. Then at 175 in the regional championship match we got #5 Zach Hedman from Moffat County vs. #6 Spencer Smith from Centauri, Smith would take the win on a 13-6 decision to secure a regional championship.

Region 4 team scores were also very interesting, in 1^st we had The Classical Academy with 227.5 points, 2^nd was Resurrection Christian with 203, La Junta finished 3^rd with 195 points, Alamosa would get 4^th with 188, and then Eaton in 5^th with 180 points. AT 106 Jeremiah DeLaCerda from Alamosa would best La Junta’s Jospeh Gamez in the regional final. At 113 in the battle between #1 and #2 in the state Blake Hawkins would get the 1505 major decision over Alamosa’s Anthony Meder. The other battle of #1 and #2 went the way of Alamosa’s Dyson Woodward when he secured the 8-7 decision over Salida’s Samuel Johnson. At 157 where we expected to see 7 ranked wrestlers competing for the top 4 spots, we saw Eaton’s Paxton Pettinger get 1^st, Tanner Kammerdiener of Florence get 2^nd, Joshua Washburn from La Junta would grab 3^rd, and Robert Perrin III get that last qualifying spot.

State Preview

First, let’s look at some storylines to watch this weekend. In 3A alone there will be 7 total returning champions looking to grab another individual state championship, as well as three wrestlers coming in with an unbeaten record. At 126, Thomas Lee from Elizabeth returns after winning two years ago at 106. At 132, Jefferson’s Samuel Rosales returns a two-time state champ looking to grab his third. Nick Dardanes from Brush won the 132 championship last year and now returns at 138. At 175 we have unbeaten wrestler from Mullen, Isaak Chavez who won the state title a year ago at 157 in that same bracket this year is returning state title holder from last year’s 175 bracket is Ritchie Bruno from Brush, this is a must watch. At 215 we have unbeaten wrestler Isaiah Johnson from Resurrection Christian coming in with a 24-0 record and will be the 1-seed in the bracket. Finally, at 285 we have returning state champ from a year ago at this same weight, from Mullen Champion Dyes, opposite him in this bracket is undefeated wrestler from Resurrection Christian, Samuel Stockton, another can’t miss matchup we hope to see in this year’s finals.

Now, let’s look at some of the top teams and a list of their qualifiers. Included will be top ten teams and any other teams that finished high at their regionals. Bolded names represent regional champs and thus a top 4 seed at state.

Brush (11)