Since 2006, the only 6A school to win a state wrestling title not named Goddard was the 2007 Manhattan Indians.
Now add the 2011 Wichita Heights Falcons to that list.
“It’s the greatest feeling I’ve ever had as a coach in my life,” said Heights head coach Mike Church. “To see the look on the kids’ faces when they win that state championship, to know that we could all join together and get to that is an awesome feeling. I’m so happy for this school and this City League to bring one back to the public schools. I’m happy that we had the opportunity to take care of it and win it.”
Goddard came into the finals with a slim lead over the Falcons, but Heights had four wrestlers in the finals, while the Lions could only bring two to the fight.
When the dust settled, Heights’ 154.5 team points was enough to top Goddard’s 142.
Of the four Heights wrestlers in the finals, three became state champions, coming through in the clutch.
The Falcons got their first title of the night at 130 pounds when Daniel Deshazer won his third state title in four years. Deshazer used his patented duck under for the last time in his high school career to create the separation in a tight 3-2 decision over Zach Dremel from Olathe South.
“I could barely feel my legs but I just had to try,” said Deshazer. “I had to do it. It feels pretty nice. I always expected it. It feels pretty good.”
After the match, Deshazer did back-to-back-to-back back-flips, one for every title in his high school career.
Also coming through in a big way for Heights was Matt Reed, who put an exclamation point on an undefeated season at 160 pounds. Reed was fighting through the pain of a blow to the groin suffered in the first period. But it still didn’t stop him from pinning Spencer Wilson from Lawrence Free State in the third period.
“I’ve been working hard all season,” said Reed. “I have some of the best practice partners in my own room to go against. That makes it a lot easier on the mat. Once I pinned my way through the Douglass tournament, then I just kept going from there.”
And the last, but certainly not least, individual champion for Heights was 189-pound Hunter Jameson. Not only did Jameson’s escape in the third period give Heights points with a 3-2 win over Jon Bernard from Hutchinson, but his upset of the reigning 189-pound champion Dalton Beard in the semifinals took a defending champion out of the Goddard arsenal in the finals.
“I worked hard for it,” said Jameson. “I’m not going to let this slow me down either. I’m going to continue to work hard. It always pays off in the end.”
While the Heights wrestlers soaked up their moments in the spotlight, Goddard’s did not. While only having two wrestlers to pick up points in the finals, both of Goddard’s finalists were defending state champions.
But that was last year, and the points don’t transfer.
In one of the most exciting matches in the tournament, a 112-pound rematch from the Campus regional, not to mention a rematch of the 2010 state finals, Garden City’s Anthony Calderon got revenge. Calderon took Bonilla down with 4 seconds left in the match to beat the guy who beat him last year 7-5. The Calderon win over Bonilla marked the first Goddard defending champion to be turned away.
“He beat me last year at state so I wanted to come back and beat him this year in his senior season,” said Calderon. “I wanted to show him that I could beat him again.”
At 152-pounds Trey Houlden, whose last-second win in the finals last year set the table for Goddard’s third-straight title, was locked up with Connor Middleton from Olathe Northwest in the finals. Both wrestlers spent the better part of the match studying each other for information to be used at the end. In the end, Middleton was the better student, taking Houlden down to get a 3-2 lead and leaving Goddard 0-for-2 and scoreless with its defending champs in the finals.
“I know that he’s been here before,” said Middleton. “He’s wrestled in the finals and knows what it is like. It’s different in the finals. I tried not to let the pressure get the best of me. I just kept moving and had the confidence in myself to pull it off.”
For the Falcons, winning the state tournament was a wild ride.
“It was a rollercoaster,” said Church. “It seemed like we were on top of the mountain and down in the valley four or five times. When we were down in the valley, we tried to claw and climb our way back to the top. These kids found a way to do it.”
One of the best stories from last year’s state tournament was the huge upset by Trey Houlden to win a title and vault his Lions into the top spot as a team.
But there was a flipside to that coin.
Derby’s Bradley Little had to wait an entire year before getting another chance at a state title after his one loss to Houlden last year came at the worst time. Little didn’t let his opportunity slip away this year.
Little’s opponent at 140 pounds, Trey Schrimscher from Wichita Heights, was a game opponent, aggressively attacking Little. But Little’s experience served him well.
Little defended one of Schrimscher’s shots in the first period, and used his aggression against him to slam the Falcon’s shoulders to the mat and get the pin.
Little’s win sent the senior off, a state champion in his final chance, to a thunderous ovation, not only from the Derby section but from Hartman Arena.
“This is an amazing feeling,” said Little. “I was just hoping I could win. It didn’t matter how, I just needed to get it done. With the disappointment that happened last year I knew I had to change it.”
One of the best matches of the finals came at 145 pounds between Hutchinson’s JR Roman and Lawrence’s Andrew Denning.
Roman and Denning were locked up in a 3-3 tie at the end of the second period with Roman starting the third on bottom. Roman escaped and added a takedown for a 6-3 lead with about a minute left.
But in the last 10 seconds, Denning got a reversal, and got Roman on his back. But Denning came up 1 second short for a 2-point near fall that would have given him a win. The buzzer sounded giving Roman a 6-5 win.
Last year, Campus wrestler Cody Beasley brought home a championship at 119 pounds. This year, Beasley faced Tre Humphrey from Shawnee Mission South at 125 pounds and the going wasn’t quite so easy. Humphrey scored the first 5 points of the match and took Beasley down at will on the way to a 9-4 decision for Humphrey.
Dodge City’s Jesse Trent is not your typical 285-pound human. The kid is as solid as a cinder block, and now has an undefeated state championship season to show for it. At 285 pounds, only Arbanas Elliott from Blue Valley Northwest stood between Trent and the undefeated season. But Trent wasn’t about to let Elliott ruin the party.
“You have to love this atmosphere,” said Trent. “It’s the biggest stage and I came through with a big win. A dominant win at that.”
Trent got his second takedown halfway through the second period to give him his third and fourth points of the match, enough to win. But he didn’t stop scoring there. By the time the Dodge City star was done, he had a 7-3 win in the state finals.
At 215-pounds, Nathan Butler from Leavenworth picked up an even more impressive victory than Trent. Butler built up a 10-0 lead in the second period when he got his opportunity to end it. Butler stopped the match early with a pin in the second period.
Manhattan’s Jase Stone seemed to be in control of the 103-pound finals against Kevin Perez from Junction City from the early going. But a funny thing happened to Stone in the final 14 seconds of the first round.
Perez escaped Stone with 14 seconds on the clock in the first period, proceeded to take him down and pick up a 3-point near fall before Stone was saved by the bell in the first period. The sequence of events to end the period gave Perez a quick 6 points and flipped the match for good.
Perez picked up a championship with a solid 9-3 decision.
When the doors opened at Hartman Arena on Friday, a total of eight previous champions entered with hopes of getting back to the top of the mountain. When the doors closed on Saturday, Daniel Deshazer and three others came away with one more medal for their personal walls of fame.
At 119 pounds, Manhattan’s Dane Norris picked up a friend for his 112-pound championship medal from 2009. Norris faced Blue Valley West’s Jacob Parise, and needed all of his 7-4 lead with 30 seconds left. Parise got a late takedown to cut Norris’ lead to 7-6. However Norris defended the 1-point lead for his second state title.
Zack Tanenbaum from Blue Valley North came in with a 2009 championship at 119 pounds, and a 2010 championship at 135 pounds. Tanenbaum had no problems defending at 135 pounds against Javon Haines from Leavenworth. The Blue Valley North wrestler picked up his third title, threatening to win by technical fall, but settling for a 14-2 major decision.
Lawrence wrestler Reece Wright-Conklin came in as last year’s champion at 160 pounds. This year, Wright-Conklin tried his hand at 171 pounds against Blaine Hill from Shawnee Mission East. Both wrestlers put forth championship efforts, but an escape in the third period to add to a 7-6 lead gave Wright-Conklin his second state title.
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