TOPEKA — Twice during Saturday’s Centennial League wrestling meet at Topeka West High School, Emporia High wrestling coach Greg Buckbee gathered his team on the mats to have a heart-to-heart talk.
The first came midway through the tournament, when Buckbee — displeased with how his squad was wrestling — offered the challenge, “How much do you want it?”
The second came after the tournament had ended, not long after the Spartans had made an astounding comeback from 32 points down only to fall 5 1/2 points short of the team title, losing to Manhattan 198-192.5.
“We gave them a hell of a shot,” Buckbee said. “We had a gut-check ... and we came back strong and gave it a shot. Our guys went after it; they did everything they could.”
Emporia, though it had five individual league champions out of seven that made it to the finals, missed out on its second straight league title, as Manhattan sent 10 wrestlers to the finals and also had five claim titles, with the final winner, Eric Rowlands at 215 pounds, sealing the victory for the Indians.
“It sucks,” said junior Jared Dakin, who won the title at 112 pounds. “I wish we could have got it (the team title) again, but I guess there’s always next year.”
That EHS was even in the running for the tournament title at the end of the day told the story of just how well the Spartans performed over the final half of the meet.
After the championship semifinals, Emporia found itself trailing Manhattan 173.5-141.5. Upset losses by No. 1 seeds Zeb Peak at 140 pounds and Logan Gaskill at 152 pounds, as well as early setbacks from Taylor Lee (145), Nathan Rodriguez (171) and Ryan Bass (215) put EHS in a sizable hole heading into the second half of the tournament.
That’s when Buckbee pulled his team aside and urged his team, “To win this tournament, you can’t have letdowns, and if you do have letdowns, you’ve got to forget about them and come back strong.”
The Spartans wasted little time taking their coach’s words to heart.
Peak, Lee, Gaskill and Bass each swept their way through the consolation bracket to reach the third-place matches, joining seven of their teammates — Dakin, Justin Rose, Sal Tovar, Chase Sanchez, Tavo Dikin, Mark Kolmer and Josh Rodriguez — that had advanced to the championship bouts of their weight classes. Caleb Chiroy made it to the consolation semifinals at 160 pounds before falling to Seaman’s Bryson Conaway, 11-2.
Heading into the last round of the day, with only the third-place and championship matches remaining, EHS had reigned in Manhattan to within arm’s reach, as the Indians’ lead over Emporia had shrunk to just 12 points at 175.5-163.5.
“The second half of the tournament, we competed really well,” Kolmer said. “After Coach Buckbee’s talk, we got it in our heads that we wanted to win.”
Once the medal rounds began, the Spartans set out on a scoring rampage.
After Manhattan’s Jeff Vesta won the 103-pound title, four straight Emporia wrestlers earned titles, with all four victories coming over Manhattan opponents.
Dakin dominated Dane Norris, getting out to a 4-0 lead before winning by an 8-1 decision. At 119 pounds, a reverse for two points in the second period gave Justin Rose all the points he would need to take down Kevin Frazier, as Rose went on to win, 8-1.
Tovar then provided some excitement in the 125-pound title bout against Lucas Wagner. With an escape to start the third period, Lucas tied the score at 4. With less than 40 seconds to go in the 2-minute round, Tovar struck with a takedown and held on from there for a 6-4 decision.
Chase Sanchez followed that with perhaps an even more thrilling performance at 130 pounds against No. 1-seeded Mitch Henderson, as Sanchez also was locked in a 4-all tie in the third period before registering a takedown with less than 20 seconds left. Henderson scored an escape to close to 6-5, but Sanchez held off every Henderson attack in the final 10 seconds to take the victory.
With the four consecutive wins, the Spartans vaulted into a tie with Manhattan atop the team standings, as each school had 179.5 points.
“I think we had them scared,” Dakin said. “It was starting to get pretty exciting.”
Next, Highland Park’s Stefan Andrews defeated Dikin at 135 pounds, and then Peak and Lee each won their third-place bouts, as Peak took a 4-3 decision over Junction City’s Richard Miller and Lee won a major decision over Highland Park’s Brian Pusch, 12-2. Gaskill fell in his third-place match, 3-2, to Junction City’s Evon Royal.
After Manhattan’s Tyler West won the 171-pound title, the Spartans again had fallen behind Manhattan, 194-186.5.
But with Kolmer, Bass and Rodriguez still to wrestle, Emporia still had a shot.
“What was going through my mind was that if we got a little help from some other teams,” Buckbee said, “then we had a shot at this.”
Kolmer recorded a huge victory at 189 pounds when he pinned Washburn Rural’s Gage Deere to win Emporia’s fifth title.
The No. 3 wrestler in Class 5A in his weight class, Kolmer said he was beginning to feel in wrestling shape after taking the first two-thirds of the season off to recover from football season.
“I still don’t think I’m completely in the swing of things,” he said, “but I’m glad I’m coming around a little bit.”
Emporia’s chances at the team title ended shortly after, however, as Rowlands beat Junction City’s Hector Acosta while Bass lost his third-place match to Rural’s Dylan Pryor when Pryor pinned Bass with 17 seconds left and Bass leading 3-1.
Rodriguez then fell, 14-8, in the 285-pound title match to Shawnee Heights’ Atticus Disney, who has not lost this season.
Not winning the team title was a bitter pill to swallow for the Spartans, but Kolmer said it provided the team with some valuable lessons.
“We have something to work for next year, for sure,” Kolmer said. “We were in it to the end, and we wrestled our tails off the last half of the tournament. We’ve just got to wrestle like that from the start.”
Centennial League Championships
Saturday at Topeka West
Championship Finals
103 — Vesta, Man, dec. Ruiz, JC, 1-0; 112 — Dakin, Emp, dec. Norris, Man, 8-1; 119 — Rose, Emp, dec. Frazier, Man, 8-1; 125 — Tovar, Emp, dec. Wagner, Man, 6-4; 130 — Sanchez, Emp, dec. Henderson, Man, 6-5; 135 — Andrews, HP, dec. Dikin, Emp, 3-1; 140 — Adams, Man, dec. Rickabaugh, SH, 6-0; 145 — Miller, Man, 17-2 tech fall over Charland, JC; 152 — Sicard, Man, maj. dec. Stanley, WR, 12-3; 160 — Lockhart, HP, dec. Stanley, WR, 7-6; 171 — Moore, HP, dec. West, Man, 9-7; 189 — Kolmer, Emp, pinned Deere, WR, 3:57; 215 — Rowlands, Man, dec. Acosta, JC, 7-2; 285 — Disney, SH, dec. Rodriguez, Emp, 14-8.
Consolation Finals
103 — Garrett, SH, dec. Kmiec, SH, 7-2; 112 — Dawn, TH, dec. Martinez, SH, 3-2 (OT); 119 — Maldonado, JC, dec. Harr, TH, 2-0; 125 — Hilderman, SH, pinned Diestelkamp, JC, 0:29; 130 — Kozlowski, JC. maj. dec. Dougan, WR, 12-1; 135 — Newberry, SH, pinned Gueary, TW, 2:43; 140 — Peak, Emp, dec. Miller, JC, 4-3; 145 — Lee, Emp, maj. dec. Pusch, HP, 12-2; 152 — Royal, JC, dec. Gaskill, Emp, 3-2; 160 — Conaway, Sea, dec. Childs, JC, 4-2; 171 — Williams, TH, dec. Mason, SH, 6-2; 189 — Knudson, JC, dec. Ceazer, SH, 12-10; 215 — Pryor, WR, pinned Bass, Emp, 4:43; 285 — Lee, Sea, dec. Durkes, TH, 3-0.