VERNAL—During the Tournament of Champions at Vernal’s Western Park Arena over the weekend, the North Sanpete Hawks wrestling team placed three out of eight competitors.
Cody Dyches (106 pounds), Kasey Curtis (126 pounds) and Kylan Taylor (144 pounds) all finished in the upper tier in their weight classes.
The 50th Annual TOC hosted 37 schools and some of the best teams in Utah as well as Southern Wyoming and Western Colorado’s finest. Brackets were filled with 32 of the best wrestlers in the western states.
Dyches went into the tournament with a 27-3 record and was seated sixth in his 32-man bracket. Dyches lost in the quarterfinals by one point to the No. 3 ranked wrestler, Kazzen Siler of Lyman Wyoming.
Dyches then battled back through the consolation side of the bracket until he met up with the fifth seed Geno Galegos from Fruita Monument, losing again by one point. In his final match of the weekend Dyches couldn’t pull out the win against Mikey Medina of Riverdale Ridge, again only losing by one point. Dyches placed sixth with a tournament record of 3-3, scoring 12 team points for the Hawks.
Curtis went into the weekend being undefeated in the season with 30 wins, despite his record, he only earned an eighth seat in the bracket. Curtis was successful pinning all his competitors up to the quarterfinals.
Curtis met his match when he faced off with the No. 1 ranked kid at the tournament and nationally ranked, Sefton Douglas of Lyman Wyoming. Douglas gave Curtis his first loss of the season with a major decision 14-4. Curtis continued to add to his wins until the consolation semis were he met up with Kaden Ercanbrack of Juab who was ranked second in the tournament.
“This is the match that I have wanted all season,” Curtis said. “I want to see where we match up because I know I will meet him at the divisional meet.”
Ercanbrack took the match 13-5 putting Curtis in the fifth and sixth place match. Curtis lost to the sixth seed, Jake Hammer of Pindale Wyoming by two points. Curtis placed sixth with a tournament record of 4-3, scoring 13 team points.
Kylan Taylor started the tournament with a 25-5 record and struggled with his first match of the tournament losing to Dylan Chelewski of Fruita Monument 8-3. This made Taylors job tougher having to push through several consolation matches. Taylor faced off with Richfield’s Garin Lord in round five of the consolations, where Lord was able to pin Taylor in the second period. Taylor was able to end the weekend with a win against Chelewski who he lost to in his first match for a seventh placement and record of 5-2 giving the Hawks 8 team points.
Coach Kris King said that the TOC Tournament is one of the toughest tournaments his team will compete in this year.
“As a whole team there was a lot of good matches,” King said. “Several matches were close while others that could have gone either way.”
He continued to say that the long two-day tournaments take a lot out of the wrestlers, but all “wrestled their hearts out.”
“I hope the boys know how proud I am as their coach and hope we can keep getting better and finish the season strong,” King said.
