Casey Lynn wrestled so well Thursday night at the Pepsi Center that he knocked out the power on the scoreboard.
“I didn’t even know,” said Lynn, who was too busy putting Colby Lindfield of Castle View on his back in the second period of their Class 4A 135-pound bout.
Officially, Lynn was credited with a pin in 3 minutes, 40 seconds.
Realistically, even with the score and time out, the senior at an veritably isolated Montezuma-Cortez in the southwestern corner of Colorado wishes to light up a few more KO’s that would lead to his first championship, one of the few in the school’s history, after flirting with attaining a title for the previous three years.
“He’s hungry enough,” a cautious Panthers coach Eric Smith said.
Lynn, 144-12 in his career and 36-0 this season, is a prominent story at the annual tournament that always has them in bunches — he has been close enough to smell one, yet hasn’t been quite good enough to taste the sweetness of the top of the podium.
As a freshman, Lynn was 32-4 and finished runner-up at 103. A year later, he was 34-4 and took fourth at the same weight. As a junior, he had to win in overtime to finish third at 125 in going 42-4 record.
“There’s not much more I can do about it, and it has been tough to deal with,” Lynn said. “I just try to use it as motivation.”
Recently committed to Adams State, Lynn is indicative of how difficult it is to become a Colorado wrestling champion among a unique field that has offered 75 years of trying, nearly every second of it worth watching. In any tournament the Panthers don’t host, it’s at least a three-hour road trip, so it isn’t as if he has been on a poster. When he competes on the amateur level, it’s more like eight hours. Hence, Montezuma-Cortez, which seems foreign to most in the Denver area, is a school that has produced nine individual winners. The most recent was Cole Allison, who went back-to-back (160 and 171) on the next-to-highest level in 2000 and 2001.
“Technically, he’s sound in all three areas (on his feet, on the top and on the bottom), he doesn’t get out of position much,” Smith said. “He’s just trying to focus on getting one.”
Lynn said Lindfield was “really strong and I don’t think I wrestled that well against him.”
But it was good enough, the theme he needs to maintain on a personal quest that would be a fitting cap to his schoolboy career.
“It would be nice to get one,” he said.
Neil H. Devlin: 303-954-1714 or ndevlin@denverpost.com
Schedule
Site: The Pepsi Center
TODAY
10 a.m. — Classes 3A-2A quarterfinals; first-round consolation immediately after
1 p.m. — Classes 5A-4A quarterfinals; first-round consolation immediately after
5:45 p.m. — Classes 3A-2A second-round consolation
7:15 p.m. — All classes semifinals; Classes 5A-4A second-round consolation as mats become available
SATURDAY
11 a.m. — Classes 3A-2A third-round consolation; semifinal consolation after
12:30 p.m. — Classes 5A-4A third-round consolation; semifinal consolation after
2 p.m. — Classes 3A-2A fifth place; third place immediately after
3 p.m. — Classes 5A-4A fifth place; third place immediately after
6:30 p.m. — Parade of Champions
7 p.m. — All classes championship matches
