{"id":23553,"date":"2025-02-13T23:46:18","date_gmt":"2025-02-14T06:46:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-sends-off-panthers-to-state-wrestling-tournament\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:38:32","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:38:32","slug":"cortez-sends-off-panthers-to-state-wrestling-tournament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-sends-off-panthers-to-state-wrestling-tournament\/","title":{"rendered":"Cortez sends off Panthers to state wrestling tournament"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=d6d0d9b1-46a3-5787-bcf2-e474caa502c4&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1163\" alt=\"The wrestlers and their first responder escorts processed from the high school down Seventh Street and back up Main Street on their way up to Denver. (\nErika Alvero\/Special to The Journal)\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">The wrestlers and their first responder escorts processed from the high school down Seventh Street and back up Main Street on their way up to Denver. (<br>\nErika Alvero\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p>Despite the freezing temperatures that reddened noses and ears, faculty, students, and community members gathered at the front entrance of Montezuma-Cortez High School on Wednesday to send their best wishes to the seven wrestlers in a warm send-off.<\/p>\n<p>The team was escorted out by the Cortez Fire Protection District and the Cortez Police Department, which led an exciting chorus of sirens to give the Panthers a memorable trip to Denver for Colorado High School Wrestling Tournament at Ball Arena Thursday through Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>At the start of the season, M-CHS boys head wrestling coach Ryan Daves expressed his goal of guiding several athletes to the state tournament and boosting overall confidence. With the addition of the girls team, seven wrestlers have stepped up for the journey to Denver.<\/p>\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=749cfc71-8a58-58ac-a4d8-94672dd0aa28&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1122\" alt=\"The Montezuma-Cortez wrestling team gathers at the high school early Wednesday morning before their celebratory send-off up to state.\nErika Alvero\/Special to The Journal\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">The Montezuma-Cortez wrestling team gathers at the high school early Wednesday morning before their celebratory send-off up to state.<br>\nErika Alvero\/Special to The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>\u201cThe biggest thing we really tried to focus on this year is believing in yourself,\u201d Daves said Wednesday morning at the send-off. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of tough kids all over the state, but we\u2019re tough too. We put in the time, effort and hard work to get where we\u2019re at now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ashton Orr, Bodie Stiegelmeyer, Rusty Snyder, Keaton Curleyhair, Paislee Mestas, CeJae Snyder, and Aubrey Rutherford earned a spot at the state competition after qualifying in regional tournaments last weekend. They will compete at the Ball Arena in Denver starting Thursday. This will be almost everyone\u2019s first visit to the Arena, except for Stiegelmeyer, who qualified last year.<\/p>\n<p>The boys team said they were most excited about the competition and that it was all their goals to qualify for state.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s quite an accomplishment for me,\u201d said Curleyhair, who is a sophomore, \u201cThe competition I\u2019ll be seeing at state will help me propel forward to match that level of competition for the next seasons as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video wp-block-embed-youtube naviga-video-embed\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/B2HVul2HTpg\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The girls wrestling team made history simply by participating in its inaugural season. Now, CeJae Snyder, Mestas and Rutherford are making their mark as part of the first-time qualifiers.<\/p>\n<p>M-CHS girls head wrestling coach James Snyder said it had been an exciting season guiding the girls team and being part of that journey.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s been unbelievable fun this year. It has been way better than we ever expected,\u201d said Coach Snyder on Wednesday morning. \u201cWe told them they made it to the big show, now we met that goal, and now our next goal is to win the next matches at state.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mestas is also representing Mancos. As one of the most experienced wrestlers on the girls team, she stepped onto the mats at Montezuma-Cortez alongside CeJae Snyder, and both qualified for state as freshmen.<\/p>\n<p>Senior Aubrey Rutherford also helped lead the team and expressed her optimism for the upcoming competition.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m hoping we all do good this weekend,\u201d Rutherford said. \u201cWe\u2019re all good wrestlers, we fought for this moment right here, and hopefully a lot of us do good this weekend and fight hard for it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Each team will begin state competition on Thursday and throughout the rest of the weekend in Denver.<\/p>\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=5af5a644-9e33-55e2-a190-2439e651248b&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1395\" alt=\"From left, Troy Parker, Marsha Chaffin, and Melinda Kline station themselves along Main Street for the wrestling send-off procession to pass through town.\nErika Alvero\/Special to The Journal\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">From left, Troy Parker, Marsha Chaffin, and Melinda Kline station themselves along Main Street for the wrestling send-off procession to pass through town.<br>\nErika Alvero\/Special to The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Coaches and wrestlers reflect on their journey to state<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23554,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,37,36,29,346,1205],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-23553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-mancos-high-school","tag-montezuma-cortez-high-school","tag-newsletter","tag-sports","tag-wrestling"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23553"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23553\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78174,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23553\/revisions\/78174"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23553"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=23553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}