State dreams are on the line this weekend for the Yuma High School boys wrestling team.
The team is in the Class 2A Region 1 Tournament, Friday and Saturday at the Bank of Colorado Events Center on the NJC campus in Sterling.
Head coach Kyle Newton and staff are expecting to take eight grapplers to the regional. Newton said earlier this week he expects that at least five — Trey Stegman, Kevin Hermosillo, Zeke Martinez, Kallen Blach and Payton Wells — should be top-five seeds in their respective weight classes.
Seeding is not known until Thursday as coaches enter certain data about each wrestler into trackwrestling.com on Tuesday and Wednesday — instead of the old days when the coaches got together on Monday of regional and hashed out the seeding.
“What it really comes down to is head-to-head criteria,” Newton said.
There are 17 schools in Region 1, including Wray, Dolores Huerta, Wiggins, Byers, Akron, Burlington, Clear Creek, Dayspring Christian, Gilpin County, Holyoke, Limon, Loveland Classical, Lyons, Merino, Sedgwick County/Fleming, and Stratton.
“It seems like our region, it’s just usually pretty stacked,” Newton said.
The top four placers in each weight class qualify for the Class 2A State Tournament, next week at Ball Arena in Denver.
Big O
The Yuma wrestlers closed out the regular season last Saturday by hosting The Big O Duals at YHS. The event is named in honor of long-time assistant coach Terry Oestman, who passed away more than one year ago. This was the second Big O Duals.
Yuma cruised to a 48-6 dual win over Holyoke. Kallen Blach won by fall over Joel Estrada at 215, Trey Stegman by fall over Tyson Mosenteen at 150, Daden Beauprez by fall over Ivan Cummints at 157, Zeke Martinez by fall over Eddie Hermosillo at 165, and Kevin Hermosillo by fall over Evan black at 190. Tanner Himes, Dallas Brunk and Deacon Brown got forfeit wins.
A tough Chatfield squad handed Yuma a 55-18 team loss. Stegman won by fall at 150, as did Hermosillo at 175. Yuma’s other win was a forfeit for Blach at 190. Yuma lost four matches on the mat, and gave up six forfeits.
Dayspring Christian eked out a 36-35 win over Yuma. Stegman earned another win by fall at 150. Beauprez got a win by fall at 157, Martinez a win by fall at 165, Hermosillo a win by fall at 175, and Blach got a technical fall (19-4) at 215. Tanner Himes got a forfeit win at 126. Dayspring won two matches on the mat, the rest of its points coming by forfeit.
Yuma earned a 30-21 win over Resurrection Christian. Himes got a win by fall at 132, Stegman a win by fall at 150, Beauprez a win by fall at 157, and Martinez a win by fall at at 165. Yuma lost three matches on the mat. Both schools got one forfeit win. There were five double forfeits.