GREELEY — Kipp Heffner knew the quality of competition he would be facing while wrestling at the 52nd annual Colorado High School Coaches Association All-State Games. But what he didn’t figure on was that he would get a double dose of it.
Yet that was the case.
“The coaches came in our room about 7 this morning. They said I was going to have to wrestle twice. That was about it,” said Heffner, a 189-pounder from Gunnison High School who was one of 19 seniors wrestling at the all-star event Saturday morning at the Butler-Hancock Sports Pavilion on the University of Northern Colorado campus. “I came down here, wrestled the first match, gave it all I could, rested a little bit, then realized I had to go back down for the second match. I gave it my all.”
Unfortunately, Heffner’s best wasn’t good enough for a victory in either match — an early 6-5 defeat to Heritage’s Ali Kayeni, followed by a 13-0 loss to Grand Junction’s Daniel Harris. But the lack of a victory didn’t spoil the experience.
“I didn’t come out with a win,” Heffner said, “but I didn’t get pinned, either. So that was a plus.”
Heffner’s Blue team fell behind 14-0 after the first five matches of the 10-match competition and couldn’t summon a rally against Bud Glover’s Red team, which won 33-6.
Glover, the head coach at Grand Junction High School, watched the Red team win four early decisions before putting the match away with a pair of pins in the upper weights.
“You know with any of these guys, they’ve been off for three months,” Glover said. “We ran a couple of practices yesterday. We didn’t know what to expect, but they showed that there’s a reason why they are here.”
The wrestlers, chosen by the coaches committee after filling out an information sheet at the state tournament in February at the Pepsi Center, may have shown their mettle, but it wasn’t without a little extra effort the past few days to get back into shape.
Just ask Rocky Ford’s David Garcia.
“I was real tired. That’s about it. I hadn’t worked out since a little bit after state,” said Garcia, a Red team wrestler who won his match at 103 pounds, defeating Brush’s Dustin Hass 4-1.
The wrestlers’ competitiveness and effort on both teams impressed Glover.
“I think watching what we did today — either side — nobody even quit,” Glover said. “It was a good experience, even being around them in the room seeing different things.
“The hard part of coaching is that you know your style, what you want, what you expect, and you’ve got 20 different kids that know what they’re doing.”
RED 33, BLUE 6
152 pounds: Jordan Larson (Red, Bayfield High School) dec. Adam Erker (Blue, Wiggins), 10-3; 189: Ali Kayeni (Red, Heritage) dec. Kipp Heffner (Blue, Gunnison), 6-5; 103: David Garcia (Red, Rocky Ford) dec. Dustin Hass (Blue, Brush), 4-1; 119: Geronimo Gemoya (Red, Grand Junction) tech fall Gabe Mamigonian (Blue, Heritage), 15-0; 125: Chad Pompa (Blue, Pueblo South) dec. J.R. McDonald (Red, Fowler), 9-2; 125: Tyler Nelson (Blue, ThunderRidge) dec. Chris Gebauer (Red, Akron), 7-5; 135: Daniel Armijo (Red, Aurora Central) dec. Nolan Myers (Blue, Smoky Hill), 6-0; 215: Luke Vandenberg (Red, Loveland) pinned Scott Redden (Blue, Gunnison), 3:18; Heavyweight: Alex Rodriguez (Red, Fruita Monument) pinned John Kuykendall (Blue, Gunnison), 2:17; 189: Daniel Harris (Red, Grand Junction) dec. Kipp Heffner (Blue, Gunnison), 13-0.
