SILT – A season after sending three Bluejays to the mat at the Pepsi Center in Denver, Mancos wrestling has high ambitions for more success at the highest level.
And the Jays kicked off their 2021 campaign on the right foot with a dominant dual meet victory over Coal Ridge, defeating the Titans 60-17 on their trip to the I-70 corridor.
With experience under their belt, the Jays are leaning on their three returning state wrestlers – senior Lot Martin, junior Chase Moore and sophomore Ayden Mathews – to help guide them throughout the season.
In their dual against Coal Ridge, the Bluejays collected eight pins, serving warning to opponents that Mancos is balanced across all weight classes this year.
Things started brightly for Mancos, as Clay Everett picked up a forfeit at the 106 classification, and the Bluejays controlled the next five matches, winning three of the five in the first period. Levi Martin captured a victory in the 120 match, winning via fall at 3:18, to be followed by Broc Imel, who pinned his opponent in 1:58.
The wins kept piling up for the Jays, as Trevor Paquin won his match at 132, picking up a pin early in the second period. Ty Everett made short work of his Titan opponent, requiring less than a minute to capture a victory, while Lot Martin had the fastest win of the day, needing 32 seconds to end his match via pin.
Moore took care of his match at 160 in just under a minute and a half, while senior Colt Fury and Lane Greenlee rounded out the Mancos pin victories at the 182 and 195 weight classifications, respectively.
While sitting outside the top 10 in the early season rankings, according to On the Mat, the Bluejays hope to make noise again at the regional tournament in the first weekend of March. The state tournament will be more selective in 2021, as only two wrestlers from each region will qualify for the state championships to be competed at the Southwest Motors Events Center in Pueblo. This means that the field for each weight classification, which has historically been 16 individuals, will be cut in half, and the 2A and 3A tournaments will be conducted in a single day – on Friday, March 12.