LAFAYETTE — Jake Snider knew it, and the crowd at Centaurus High School knew it. The bushy-haired senior from Ponderosa High School, in cruise control throughout this weekend’s Top of the Rockies wrestling tournament, suddenly found himself looking up at the lights with a second loss this season staring him squarely in the face.
Fortunately for him, however, defeat was averted. But just barely.
Snider’s 18-8 victory, one of three for Ponderosa in Saturday’s finals, proved valuable in his team’s fifth-place finish in the powerhouse 32-team field, but it wasn’t as easy as the score might indicate.
Snider, who soon will be looking to become just the 16th wrestler in Colorado history to win a fourth consecutive state championship, jumped to an 11-1 lead in the title match at 145 pounds.
But when Cheyenne Central’s Austin Breckenridge, a state champion in Wyoming last year as a sophomore, turned a headlock takedown midway through the second period into a near fall, the crowd sensed Snider was on the verge of a rare defeat.
Yet, somehow, the Ponderosa star avoided it.
“I felt pretty close to getting pinned there. I’m never really good at fighting off my back,” said Snider, who admitted he got a little lackadaisical.
Maybe a nagging cold that affected his breathing had something to do with it. But once he heard the reaction of the crowd as he lay prone on the mat, Snider turned the match around.
Grand Island, Neb., won the team title with 178 points, despite going 0-3 in the finals.
Roosevelt finished second with 163 points, and Rio Rancho, N.M., was third with 159.
Ponderosa’s other finalists — Steven Kelly at 152 pounds and Austin Gabel at 171 — didn’t have things easy, either. Kelly was victorious 5-1 over Colby Kluesner of Conifer. Two matches later, Gabel, the top wrestler in Class 5A, slipped past Broomfield’s Josh Van Tine, Class 4A’s No. 1-ranked wrestler, 3-2. Though neither match was a dominant effort, like many of their matches earlier this season, it was good enough to get the job done.
“The team is starting to come together pretty well. We had some lower weights that usually go 0-2 that stepped up this weekend to give us some points,” Gabel said.
In other finals, Emilio Martinez of Greeley West slipped past Roosevelt’s Jace Lopez 5-4 in a battle of Class 4A’s top two wrestlers at 103 pounds; Taylor Moeder of St. James Academy, Kan., scored a 3-1 decision over Greeley West’s Joseph Martinez at 125 pounds, in the only battle of unbeatens; and Pomona’s Gabe Boyd avenged a loss last year to Centaurus’ Austin Scheufele with a pinfall in 1:54 at heavyweight.
