Douglas High wrestling

Douglas wrestling punches 11 tickets to state

Zinn, Highfill, Conkle reach regional final

Tiger senior Kolton Zinn, left, squares up with Spanish Spring’s Abner Lopez, during their 150-pound regional title match Saturday. Zinn fell to his club teammate, taking second place and qualifying for state.

Tiger senior Kolton Zinn, left, squares up with Spanish Spring’s Abner Lopez, during their 150-pound regional title match Saturday. Zinn fell to his club teammate, taking second place and qualifying for state.
Photo by Carter Eckl.

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Three different Douglas High wrestlers had a chance at a Class 5A north regional title Saturday evening at Spanish Springs High School.

All three Tiger grapplers finished the tournament in second place, falling in their last match of the day, but all three booked their ticket to the state tournament next weekend.

Douglas senior Kolton Zinn ran into Spanish Springs’ Abner Lopez in the 150-pound finale, falling in 3:50 by pin to the three-time regional champ.

Zinn grabbed a 3-0 lead with the first takedown of the contest, but Lopez used a reversal to cut the gap to one point, 3-2, by the end of the first.

In the second, Lopez secured his first takedown before working it to a pin.

“About two weeks ago, I think I he pinned me in the second, but he was up by like 14 points,” said Zinn. “I made a bunch of adjustments and I was pretty happy with how I wrestled. “

Zinn’s path to the finals included two pins and a win by major decision, 19-8, in the semifinal.

Fellow senior Cody Highfill didn’t need more than the first period in any of his matches, leading up to the finals.

In the 120-pound finale, Highfill lost by pin to McQueen’s Abe Coronado in 1:50. Coronado won the 120-pound regional title last winter as a freshman.

“He's really tough,” said Highfill of Coronado. “I'm blessed to have the opportunity to wrestle here and to have placed here four times. Like every single year, that's a really big deal.”

Highfill qualified for his fourth state tournament with the second place finish.

Douglas junior Izaak Conkle took sixth last season at 175 pounds.

Saturday, he was wrestling for the regional title after tech falling his way into the finals.

Conkle fell by pin against Spanish Springs senior Kolby Benge, but his overall performance to get to the finals impressed his peers.

“He just puts his head down and he works in the practice room harder than most guys in there,” said Zinn of Conkle. “He really deserved to be in that finals match.”

His head coach noticed his performance as well.

“Isaac Conkle … amazing day,” said Douglas head coach Jake Fair. “Worked really hard and you know the technique worked, to trust the process.”

(Cody Highfill works for head control in the Class 5A North 120-pound regional championship match. Highfill took second place, qualifying the senior for his fourth state tournament. / Carter Eckl)


TIGERS PUNCH EIGHT MORE TICKETS TO STATE

Along with the three wrestlers in regional final matches, Douglas had multiple other grapplers earn a spot in the final tournament of the season.

As a team, the Tigers finished in fifth place with 119.5 team points.

Freshman Hunter Smokey continued to impress in his rookie campaign by taking third place at 144 pounds.

Smokey won his first two matched by fall and major decision before dropping his semifinal by decision, 15-8, to Brevin Curtis of McQueen.

“He did an amazing job. He had some stitches in the back of his head from a couple weeks ago,” said Fair. “I think he’s going to do great things at state as well.”

The freshman responded to the loss by besting teammate Spencer Roussel in the consolation semis and pinning Elijah McKay of Reed in the third place match.

Kai Blumenthal nearly had a comeback for third place in his final match of the day, but lost by a 10-9 decision to take fourth place and assure himself a spot in the state tournament.

Blumenthal overcame a pin by Carson’s Jett Rupert in his first match by winning three in a row – one by technical fall, two by pin – to get into the third place match where he ran into the Senator wrestler again.

In the rematch, Blumenthal lost by a 10-9 decision.

Vincent Cereghino hadn’t been able to accrue much varsity mat time this winter, but took advantage of a chance at the regional tournament.

The sophomore went 3-2 in his five matches, picking up a pin in his fifth place match over Reed’s Grayson Williams and qualifying for state.

“Hasn’t wrestled varsity all year and he’s getting better. He spent a lot of time in the offseason. He couldn’t quite find that varsity role this year,” said Fair. “Opportunity came up to be an extra, wow, what an amazing performance he put together.”

Raiden Barnes was another Tiger wrestler capitalizing on an opportunity as the senior secured a state tournament appearance with a fifth place finish at 215 pounds.

Barnes was 4-2 in the one-day tournament with three wins by pin.

Uriah Brady (106), Isaac Bedrosian (126), Roussel (144) and Jesse Reiner (165) all qualified for state with sixth-place finishes in their respective brackets.

UP NEXT: Douglas will compete at the Class 5A state tournament this coming weekend Feb. 7-8 in Fallon at Rafter 3C Arena.

(Douglas sophomore Vincent Cereghino took sixth place in the 150-pound weight class at the Class 5A North regional wrestling tournament. The top-six finished qualified Cereghino for state after not wrestling for most of the season with the varsity squad. / Carter Eckl)