State aspirations will be on the line when the Yuma High School boys wrestling team competes in the Class 2A Region 3 Tournament, Friday and Saturday at Akron High School.
However, the Indians will be without two of their brethren as they have been put in quarantine and will miss their chance at competing for a state tournament berth.
“I just don’t like seeing it happen to the kids like that,” head coach Kyle Newton said. “I’ve really been disappointed since last Friday when all of this happened.”
The Indians also did not get to compete in their regular-season-ending triangular at Lamar, last Saturday, as school officials decided to keep them home in light of the positive COVID-19 case in the school, and the potential for close contact.
However, most will get a shot at a state berth, either Friday or Saturday in the Akron fieldhouse. The top two placers in each weight will qualify for next week’s state tournament in Pueblo. There will be an opportunity for a challenge match between the second- and third-place finishers if they have not wrestled each other yet.
Weights 106-145 will complete their entire regional on Friday, beginning at 2:30 p.m., and weights 152-285 will do the same on Saturday, beginning at 11:30 a.m.
Wrestling on Friday for Yuma will be John Smith at 120, Hugo Montes at 126, Braden Smith at 132, Blaze Brophy at 138, and either Will Marshall or Dante Baquera at 145.
Wrestling Saturday will be either Tyler Allen or Zeke Martinez at 152 (challenge matches were held earlier this week), Yahir Trejo at 160, Louden Blach at 170, Kallen Blach (who had been at 195 most of the season) at 182, Jose Ruiz at 220 and Brandon Mendoza at 285.
The Indians were able to get in their annual showdown match with rival Wray, last Thursday in the Eagles Nest, dropping a 44-15 decision to the top-ranked Eagles.
“I think it is going to do us some good at regional,” Newton said of the Wray experience. “It showed us what we have to work on. We obviously had the three wins, then we had some other matches where our guys wrestled well. We started working on different techniques this week if we wrestle those guys again.”
