The Emporia High wrestling team is officially on the verge of something special.
The large crowd at the championship matches of Saturday’s 5A Regional at EHS made a gym-filling racket fit for a championship team, and that’s exactly what the Spartans looked like in dominating the Regional field. Now, it comes down to two days in Valley Center for the ultimate prize — and top-ranked Emporia will get to send almost all the ammunition it has in the quest to bring home a State title.
Eight EHS wrestlers earned Regional titles on Saturday, and the Spartans’ goal for all 14 of its wrestlers to qualify for State was nearly realized. Thirteen qualified to represent EHS next weekend at the Kansas Coliseum, and the Spartans’ Regional dominance made winning their first State title since 2000 seem — well, like a bet that’s worth putting your money on.
Don’t tell that to EHS coach Greg Buckbee, of course.
“I’m not ready to count my chickens yet,” said Buckbee, named the Regional coach of the year at the conclusion of the tournament. “... We did our job today, and we gotta continue to do our job next week, and throughout the week, and we’ve got a good shot at it, yes.”
Emporia’s 233.5 points easily bested second-place St. Thomas Aquinas’ 126, with championships going to Bryce Dakin, Jared Dakin, Justin Rose, Sal Tovar, Tavo Dikin, Zeb Peak, Mark Kolmer and Lorenzo Serna. The top four regional placers in each weight class earn a trip to State, and joining the Spartan champions in Valley Center will be Chase Sanchez and Logan Gaskill — who both earned second-place finishes — as well as consolation-bracket qualifiers Colby Walecki, Taylor Lee and Jordan Barr.
“It’s the best team in the state, if you ask me,” Peak said. “And we’re just gonna keep going after ’em and keep just taking people out. You gotta break ’em, and that’s what we do.”
Although the Spartans are on the verge of making history as a team, Tovar is now on the doorstep of making individual history. With his three wins and championship at 135 pounds on Saturday, Tovar is now at 128 victories for his career. If he gets the four wins needed for an individual state title at Valley Center, he’ll surpass Dusty Spaulding’s EHS record of 131 career victories. Tovar took 40 seconds combined to pin his quarterfinal and semifinal opponents on Saturday before earning his championship with a 5-0 shutout of Gardner-Edgerton’s Micah Flora-Swick.
“It’d be a great feeling if I can get that (record) at the state tournament, senior year,” Tovar said. “And just to beat it, with all the history they have, and me be the top for history, would be a great honor.”
Peak, facing Seaman’s Sam Blindt in the 152-pound final, earned Emporia’s most dramatic championship of the night. Trailing Blindt 6-4, he scored a reversal just before the third-period buzzer sounded to tie the score. Or so it appeared.
“I was on bottom... and I hit a switch, and it was just a spur-of-the-moment thing,” Peak said. “I just needed the points, so I just hit it as hard as I could, I caught him.”
Peak and most everyone else watching thought the match was headed to overtime. But with the scoreboard still showing 6-6, the officials conferred and decided that Blindt had locked his hands as Peak pulled his reversal. That penalty point gave Peak the championship, 7-6.
“I really didn’t know that I got the one point,” he said. “I knew that I had the two, but I thought we were going to overtime. I looked over to Sal, and he was motioning for another one point. So I looked over and all the officials were talking to each other, and they said I got the one, so that was actually the best feeling of them all.”
Spartan fans also got worked into a frenzy over the 103-pound championship bout that kicked off the finals. Bryce Dakin, facing Aquinas’ Tommy Williams, trailed 8-7 when Williams was whistled for a third caution warning with 5.7 seconds left, giving Dakin the tying point and sending the match to overtime. Dakin overtook Williams and secured a pin, and the championship, with just 9.8 seconds remaining in the first overtime.
Rose had an easy time in his first two matches at 130 pounds, pinning Highland Park’s Luke Dawdy at the 1:04 mark and Brett McGillvary of Shawnee Heights at 1:40, but Seaman’s Cole Schreiner proved to be a tougher challenge in the final. A late takedown gave Rose a 3-2 edge, which he held onto for the championship.
The rest of EHS’s champions earned their titles with little drama. At 119 pounds, Jared Dakin pinned both Mill Valley’s Ryan Howes and Aquinas’ Jacob Berggren in fewer than two minutes in the daytime rounds, then had little trouble with Seaman’s Hunter Garrett in the evening final, narrowly missing a major decision with a 9-2 victory.
“I wrestled that kid a couple of times before,” Dakin said, “and I knew the stuff I could usually use — arm chops and tilts — work on him. I knew it would work.”
Dikin followed a first-round bye with two easy victories at 140 pounds, an 8-1 win over Seaman’s Adam Tignor in the semis and a 9-0 major decision over Gardner-Edgerton’s Casey Kidwell in the final.
Kolmer ran his season record to 35-1 with his title at 189 pounds. He pinned Gardner’s Alex Chamblin at the 1:29 mark in Round One, earned a 17-0 technical fall over Aquinas’ Matt Coombs in the semis, then grinded out a 3-0 victory over Steven Cooksley of Seaman in the title bout. At heavyweight, Serna was the only Spartan to earn three pins en route to a title, the last coming when he overtook Justin Walberg of Aquinas with 22 seconds left in the third period.
Gaskill narrowly missed giving the Spartans a ninth individual title, dropping the 160-pound final to Gardner’s Todd Curtis by a 4-3 count. Sanchez lost in the 145-pound title bout to Jake Walker of Aquinas by a 5-2 decision. Despite daytime defeats, Walecki, Lee and Barr each got the victories they needed on the back side to punch their tickets to State. Walecki and Lee earned fourth-place finishes, while Barr defeated Seaman’s Rick Singer in the consolation-round final by a 4-2 decision to earn third place. Drew Detwiler, a freshman, fell short of qualifying for State at 112 pounds, losing his first-round match and then going 1-1 in the consolation bracket.
“All 14 won matches, all 14 scored points for the team, and that’s another plus,” Buckbee said.
The Spartans have been Class 5A’s No. 1 team all year long, and now, they have to maintain that status for two more days to make EHS history and win the program’s 10th State title.
“I know we have a long week of practice still,” Kolmer said. “And we gotta keep things intense in there, so that way we can finish this year off right.”
“I hope we win, I think we will win, we should win,” Tovar added. “We just gotta wrestle smart. I wish it was 14 (wrestlers going), but we have 13 in, and that’s good. Just need to keep driving forward, and this is our last tournament — need to give it our all.”
In finishing second, Aquinas qualified eight wrestlers for State and produced the tournament’s selection for outstanding wrestler in Jacob Nowak, who won the 215-pound title. Mill Valley finished third with 125 points and had nine State qualifiers, as did fourth-place Shawnee Heights. Seaman and Gardner finished fifth and sixth, respectively, and qualified seven wrestlers apiece. Highland Park finished seventh and had two qualifiers, and Topeka West finished eighth and had one qualifier.
Saturday at Emporia High
Team scores
Emporia 233.5, St. Thomas Aquinas 126, Mill Valley 125, Shawnee Heights 117, Seaman 107.5, Gardner-Edgerton 106.5, Highland Park 36, Topeka West 11.
Championship finals
103 — B. Dakin, EMP, def. Williams, AQU, fall 6:51 (OT); 112 — Boyer, MV, def. Stokes, GE, fall 6:25; 119 — J. Dakin, EMP, def. Garrett, SEA, 9-2; 125 — Carstarphen, HP, def. Strimple, SH, 9-6; 130 — Rose, EMP, def. Schreiner, SEA, 3-2; 135 — Tovar, EMP, def. Flora-Swick, GE, 5-0; 140 — Dikin, EMP., def. Kidwell, GE, 9-0 maj. dec.; 145 — Walker, AQU, def. Sanchez, EMP, 5-2; 152 — Peak, EMP, def. Blindt, SEA, 7-6; 160 — Curtis, GE, def. Gaskill, EMP, 4-3; 171 — VanHolland, MV, def. Newberry, SH, 7-5; 189 — Kolmer, EMP, def. Cooksley, SEA, 3-0; 215 — Nowak, AQU, def. Beck, MV, fall 1:10; 285 — Serna, EMP, def. Walberg, AQU, fall 5:38.
Consolation finals
103 — Kmiec, SH, def Hodges, MV, fall 1:23; 112 — Simmons, SEA, def. Pollock, HP, fall 1:54; 119 — Berggren, AQU, def. Trevino, SH, fall 2:27; 125 — Litvak, GE, def. Walecki, EMP, 3-2; 130 — Ellison, MV, def. Long, GE, 5-3; 135 — Korte, MV, def. Blankenship, AQU, 5-1; 140 — Rickabaugh, SH, def. Speckin, AQU, 4-0; 145 — Mullin, MV, def. T. Willis, SH, fall 1:32; 152 — A. Willis, SH, def. Ellis, MV, fall :46; 160 — Rogers, MV, def. Boswell, SEA, fall 4:28; 171 — Curtis, GE, def. Lee, EMP, fall 2:24; 189 — Coombs, AQU, def. Flanagan, SH, default; 215 — Barr, EMP, def. Singer, SEA, 4-2; 285 — Bowers, SH, def. Soroko, TW, fall :09.