Wheat Ridge junior Nick Swanson had a bandage protecting a cut on his forehead. He wore a breathing strip on his nose, which he broke two summers ago.
But he was anything but a beaten wrestler. Far from it.
Swanson, whose only loss this season came at the Rocky Mountain Rumble in Utah, steamrolled through the Les Mattocks Invitational at Abraham Lincoln High School, culminating with a pin of Aurora Central’s Bryan Calderon in 2 minutes, 52 seconds in the 135-pound championship match.
Swanson (19-1), who won the tournament for the first time in three tries, built an early 4-1 lead after an opening takedown and two back points to score his second win by pin in four matches Saturday.
“He’s tough. A scrappy, strong kid,” Swanson said of Calderon. “I just had to be more patient. I was a little bit anxious in the first few minutes. I have to calm down a little bit. I think that’s what helped me pin him. I was just relaxed.”
Team-wise, the day belonged once again to Pomona. The Panthers placed 10 wrestlers into the finals and had six champions, including 112-pound sophomore Lucas Vagher. The Panthers finished with 296 1/2 points, easily outdistancing runner-up Thompson Valley (221 1/2). Aurora Central (131 1/2), Eagle Valley (125) and Mountain Vista (105) completed the top five.
“I feel great about where we’re at right now,” Pomona coach Pat Decamillis said. “We have two weeks left of preparation for the state tournament and that’s our goal.”
Not everything went perfectly for the Panthers. They forfeited a pair of finals — Austin Marvel to Thompson Valley’s Tanner Taylor at 119 pounds and Justin Frazer to Adams City’s Donovan Maes at 152. Both were because of injuries that Decamillis didn’t see any reason to make worse.
In the championship match at 145 pounds, Thompson Valley’s Kyle McNally literally held on to a 1-0 lead during the final 18 seconds. McNally hopped on one leg as Pomona’s Darrick Chavez tried his best to hand McNally his first loss in 23 matches this season.
“I knew I was up by one and I couldn’t let him escape,” said McNally, who scored the title match’s only point with an early second-period escape. “We were even on our feet. I couldn’t take him down and I knew I needed to hold on for dear life.”
