{"id":35973,"date":"2023-02-03T12:44:35","date_gmt":"2023-02-03T19:44:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/areas-best-wrestlers-converge-on-dolores-for-sjbl-titles\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T08:28:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:28:20","slug":"areas-best-wrestlers-converge-on-dolores-for-sjbl-titles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/areas-best-wrestlers-converge-on-dolores-for-sjbl-titles\/","title":{"rendered":"Area\u2019s best wrestlers converge on Dolores for SJBL titles"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dove
Dove Creek's Wade Conner controls his match against Ignacio's Joshua Kerrigan in the SJBL Duals at Dolores High School. (Ben Bradley\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Championship season is officially upon us.<\/p>\n

After three grueling months on the mat, the first days of February mean that the wrestling season is in the stretch run \u2013 kicked off with the San Juan Basin League Duals, hosted by Dolores.<\/p>\n

Mancos ruled the roost on a night in which the Bluejays took seven SJBL titles, helping bolster head coach Ty Penning\u2019s squad heading into the upcoming regional matches next week. The Jays continue to sit within the top five in the 2A field according to Tim Yount\u2019s On the Mat rankings and flexed their muscles to validate their position in the polls.<\/p>\n

\"Mancos
Mancos wrestling coaches Ty Penning and Alan Mathews provide guidance to a Bluejays wrestler at the SJBL Duals at Dolores High School. (Ben Bradley\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Ignacio's
Ignacio's Keaton McCoy gets tied up with Mancos' Jacob Martin in the SJBL Duals at Dolores High School. (Ben Bradley\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Ignacio's
Ignacio's Keaton McCoy upends Mancos' Jacob Martin in the SJBL Duals at Dolores High School. (Ben Bradley\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Dolores
Dolores senior Ethen Robson shoots low against Mancos' Colten Vannest in the SJBL Duals at Dolores High School. (Ben Bradley\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Dove
Dove Creek's Frankie Montoya controls his match with Dolores' Micah Vrtatko in the SJBL Duals at Dolores High School. (Ben Bradley\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

It was Mancos\u2019 Isaiah Martinez (31-7) taking the top spot overall at 120 with a second-round pin of Dove Creek\u2019s Chad Klein to continue his winning season. In the other match in the division, Dolores\u2019 Nathan Hill (19-22) picked up a victory, downing Ignacio\u2019s Dillon Brann (4-23) to fire up the home crowd.<\/p>\n

Brandon Vannest of Mancos (29-7) bested Ignacio\u2019s Lincoln DeKay in the opening period to take top spot at 138 for the state-ranked Bluejays.<\/p>\n

In the 106-pound division, Mancos\u2019 Dillon Eicher (20-10) picked up a pin of Ignacio\u2019s Aven Bourriague, while fellow state tournament veterans Ayden Mathews (29-6) got a pin at 165 pounds and Cole Dainty-Guilfoyle (32-3) pinned Dove Creek\u2019s Myles Ives at 175 pounds to continue the Bluejays victory parade.<\/p>\n

The Bluejays picked up another individual championship with a workmanlike performance from one of the state\u2019s premier wrestlers when Levi Martin (33-5) took a third-period pin of Ignacio\u2019s Zach Pontine (25-17) at 132.<\/p>\n

Mancos\u2019 Elliot Sam (24-11) topped Dolores\u2019 Micah Vrtatko to cap off an evening full of blue-and-white arms raised in the middle of the mat.<\/p>\n

Dove Creek sophomore Wade Conner (14-9) took top spot at 113, defeating Ignacio\u2019s Joshua Kerrigan 6-1 in a cagey match. After sparring through the opening period, Conner seized momentum in the second, taking down Kerrigan to build a lead he would not relinquish. Kerrigan had defeated Norwood\u2019s Aiden Walton to advance to the championship match.<\/p>\n

Fellow Bulldog Tyson Beanland (20-3) captured the top spot at 150, defeating Ignacio\u2019s Asher Gallegos in the first period for the second individual title to Dove Creek. Gallegos had defeated Mancos\u2019 Bryce Miera to advance to face Beanland. Dove Creek\u2019s Frankie Montoya also collected an exhibition win for the \u2018Dogs.<\/p>\n

For Dolores, senior Ethen Robson (9-2) won twice to take the title at 190 pounds, defeating Nucla\u2019s Paxtin Caruso and Mancos\u2019 Colten Vannest with first period pins, to capture the Bears\u2019 SJBL individual crown.<\/p>\n

Host Dolores helped the area showcase turn into an action-packed spectacle, making it clear that Southwest Colorado wrestling will make plenty of noise in the upcoming 2A regionals.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an honor to have this tournament here,\u201d said Dolores head coach Casen Eldredge, \u201cto see all the talent displayed by all the teams. It was really great to see how all the area wrestlers have improved this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for his squad, Eldredge recognized the strides that his young group have made over the past months.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were right in a lot of our matches,\u201d he added, \u201cand we know that we\u2019re wanting to be peaking this time of year \u2013 so to see some of the best wrestling that we\u2019ve seen all season gives me high hopes for regionals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nucla\u2019s JW Naslund won the 126 title, defeating Mancos\u2019 Quinton Martinez (23-12) with a second-round pin.<\/p>\n

Ignacio\u2019s Keaton McCoy (16-7) won a pair of matches at 144, including one of the biggest seesaw matches of the evening in his encounter with Mancos\u2019 Jacob Martin, scoring a takedown midway through the second period before the duo traded scores in the third. McCoy prevailed 9-7 for the 144 crown.<\/p>\n

With the 2A regionals on the horizon, the entire San Juan Basin League will head north to Hayden to battle for a larger prize \u2013 a team regional title and four coveted individual spots at each weight division who will qualify for the state championships at Ball Arena in Denver over the weekend of Feb. 14-16.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re wanting to see wrestling in Southwest Colorado at the highest level possible,\u201d said Eldredge, \u201cso we know that the better the wrestlers are around us, the better that we\u2019re going to be.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mancos, Dove Creek, Dolores earn individual titles<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35974,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[38,39,37,346,1205],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-35973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dolores-high-school","tag-dove-creek-high-school","tag-mancos-high-school","tag-sports","tag-wrestling"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35973","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=35973"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83190,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35973\/revisions\/83190"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35973"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=35973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}