PUEBLO — In a shortened wrestling season like no other, the Class 2A state wrestling tournament delivered championship bouts like no other, but it took until the final match to decide a new champion.
Eyan Chavez (21-1), a junior from Centauri, topped previously-undefeated Clint Brown of Peyton in a sudden victory in the first overtime period with a takedown, and held Brown down to lock up the Falcons’ first state championship since 2010.
“We all worked so hard for this every single day and to get it feels even better than I can explain,” Chavez said. “I felt like we were big underdogs and a lot of people didn’t see us winning, but I knew if we all did our job, we’d get that team title.”
Centauri courageously battled its way to the crown by making the most of its middleweights. But 106-pound freshman Riley Valdez reached the finals with seven losses. And while he ultimately lost to Buena Vista’s undefeated Caleb Camp, it still set the tone of the night. Two other Falcons finished runners-up and two took fifth-place.
“Last week when we qualified eight and the bracket came out, I told the team ‘look, itap right there,’” Falcons head coach Cahlen Keys said. “You don’t win when you don’t believe, but they believed and I knew they did.”
Nine wrestlers entered Friday’s quarterfinals undefeated, and all nine reached their respective championship matches. But only four finished 2021 undefeated.
Entering the final round, Wray, which had won the last three team titles, still stood in the Falcons’ flight path with the potential to come from behind and were tied with Cedaredge with 84 points.
The Eagles had four wrestlers reach the finals, and two others assured a podium spot. But three finished runners-up, including sophomore Brady Collins at 120 pounds — the last chance for a potential four-time state champion for the class of 2023. Collins, who won a 106-pound championship last season, was beaten by Lane Hunsberger in a 5-3 sudden victory in overtime. Hunsberger rallied from an early deficit, tied the match at 3-3 in the third period and completed a thrilling win in overtime.
“I’ve been thinking about this a lot,” Hunsberger said. “I finished runner-up last year and have been dreaming about this since I was a little kid. I knew it was a pretty big challenge and he is super talented. He won state last year, so it was a big moment for me.”
The lack of matches heading into Friday ultimately impacted every team at the state tournament, and Wray was no different.
“I think for the most part we wrestled pretty good,” said Wray coach Matt Brown. “A few of our younger kids got nervous in the morning, but they came back and wrestled pretty hard.”
The Eagles went down fighting with Collins’ older brother, Tyler, winning a championship at 152 pounds.
A few moments later, Keys was coaching Chavez to get over the finish line. Keys locked up the Falcons’ last team title with a perfect 31-0 season in 2010. More than a decade later, he looked to his most experienced wrestler in Chavez to deliver.
“It was only fitting he ended it the way he did,” Keys said. “At the end of the day, we had it locked up by a point but it was certainly the cherry on top.”
While the amount of undefeated wrestlers entering the championship round was impressive, Brown thought that the quality of wrestling was not as crisp, given the lack of traditional weekend tournaments. Wrestlers typically get 45-50 matches in a given season, but with a delayed start to Season B, most were lucky to get half of that.
“That was one of those things we had to deal with this year,” Brown said. “We made the most of it, but I think thatap just because we didn’t have our typical matches that we’re used to having. … but the wrestling overall isn’t as clean as it normally is at the state tournament and thatap down to match time.”
In another potential four-timer bid for the class of 2023, Byers’ Lain Yapoujian at 138 pounds, who was previously undefeated and lost just once in 2020, lost his semifinal match to Highland’s Zach Tittle in a sudden victory in overtime. Tittle carried the momentum all the way to a state title and pinned another previously undefeated wrestler in Anthony Aldretti from John Mall.
