Dylan Pickering didn’t get to ease his way into the state wrestling tournament. The Bayfield High School senior jumped right onto the mat in the Class 3A semifinals against a two-time state champion.
Pickering’s quarterfinal opponent suffered an injury earlier in the week, so he received a bye directly into the semifinals of the Colorado High School Association Class 3A State Wrestling Tournament at the Southwest Motors Events Center in Pueblo.
That put him against Lamar’s Zane Rankin, the top seed in the 145-pound bracket, for his first match in a week. Pickering would lose a 7-2 decision, but the Wolverine fought his way to two victories in the consolation bracket to place third at state.
“Not having a first-round match, it leaves all the nerves for the semifinal,” BHS head coach Todd McMenimen said. “Sometimes it’s a little difficult to go into the semifinal cold, but Dylan handled it really well and wrestled him really tough.
“Dylan was really loose and, like he did all year, he wrestled for the love of wrestling all day today. He had no pressure and enjoyed the atmosphere. I was so proud of how he approached it.”
Rankin would go on to win the 145-pound championship to become a three-time state winner. He won a 3-2 decision against Pagosa Springs’ Dylan Tressler to claim the title with a takedown in the first period and an escape in the second period. Tressler, who lost to Pickering in the 3A Region 1 tournament championship a week earlier, scored one escape point and was awarded a stalling point against Rankin in the third period.
Pagosa Springs would win the Class 3A team title with 110.5 points. Eaton was second with 84.5 points, and Weld Central was third with 110.5 points.
For the Pagosa Springs Pirates, Cameron Lucero (160 pounds) as an individual state champion. Skyler Hill (220) and Tressler placed second, while Erik Wyman (120) and Brae Bergdolt (152) were each third. Wil Aucoin (182) placed fourth, and Grant Aucoin (170) placed fifth.
“Pagosa got a much-deserved team win,” McMenimen said. “Dan Janowsky over there does a heck of a job coaching those kids, and they had a real solid group over there this year to walk away with it. They were in control the whole way through.”
Two state champions came out of Bayfield’s league, as Centauri also won the Class 2A state title with 104 points. Cedaredge was second with 99 points, and Wray placed third with 94 points.
Mancos had a strong showing in Class 2A to take 11th with 40 points. Mancos 113 pounder Levi Martin (21-1) won his state championship match with a 12-4 major decision against Buena Vista’s Chris Hutchings.
Against Rankin (23-1), Pickering (16-3) gave up a takedown in the first period and another in the second before going down 6-0 on a two-point nearfall. Pickering’s points would come with a third-period takedown.
Pickering would pin Valley’s Collin Brown (23-4) in the consolation semifinals when the match was tied at 6-6. Pickering was taken down early but got a reversal to tie the match at 2-2 after one period. Brown scored two more takedowns in the second period, but Pickering escaped each time before scoring his own takedown and finishing with a pin 47 seconds into the second period.
“The Valley kid wrestled him tough from the beginning, but I never felt there was a real question as far as who would control the match,” McMenimen said. “After he gave up that first takedown, Dylan was in control the whole way.”
In the third-place match, Pickering ran into Sterling’s Riley Bornhoft (21-3), who had lost a 4-3 decision to Tressler in the semifinals. Pickering did all of his damage in the second period with two three-point nearfalls on his go-to tilt move. That helped him overcome first- and third-period takedowns by Bornhoft to earn a 6-4 decision win.
“Dylan went back to what Dylan does best with his tilt,” McMenimen said. “That’s his No. 1 weapon. Some people think you can’t win much with a tilt, but we’ve had several kids come through our program and show it is possible. Dylan went with his bread and butter, built a lead going into the third and battled through it to come out victorious.”
Pickering was the lone state qualifier for BHS in the condensed state tournament this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. BHS would have had five qualifiers if brackets were 16 boys instead of eight.
That left Pickering without any teammates to warm up with or anyone to cheer for between matches.
“It made for a weird feeling for state all the way around,” McMenimen said. “It didn’t have the same feeling and environment of a state tournament with all the classifications wrestling together. It was strange, but we got a season in. It wasn’t a normal season, but to get a full season in with the way it looked last summer and fall with the constantly changing schedules, there were a lot of times it didn’t look like there would be any chance we could wrestle this year.
“The fact we got this off was a blessing.”
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
