RANGELY I Panther senior Lucas Heinle and junior Ethan Allred qualified for the 2014 Colorado State Wrestling Championships, and, although both won at least one match, neither placed in their respective weights.
“We didn’t wrestle to our potential at state,” Rangely head coach Jeff Heinle said. “We had some good matches, but we lost both in the first round and that was critical because it is so hard to recover.
Lucas Heinle qualified for the state tournament all four years of his high school career, and this was the first time he entered the “Big Show” as a regional champion.
“Lucas got sick following the regional tournament and never recovered,” coach Heinle said of his son’s health.
Heinle lost his first match 3-1 to Nick Duvall of Sedgwick County-Florence, then wrestled and pinned Adam Serrano-Bobian of John Mall before being eliminated with his second loss of the tournament, to Jeremiah Moreno of Center, 7-5.
“It was a hard state tournament, knowing it was the last state tournament I would help coach Lucas at,” Heinle said.
Allred qualified in the 160-pound division with a fourth-place finish at the regional tournament. That matched him up with regional champion Jonas Cure of Wray in the first round of the state tournament, where he was pinned in the third period. He pinned David Macias of Center in the first round of the consolation bracket. Allred then defeated Austin Palmer of Holly, 9-2, but he was eliminated by another loss to Rafe Hutches of Baca County one match before the medal round.
“We all thought this would be a good year for both of Rangely’s wrestlers to place high on the podium; it just didn’t work out,” Coach Heinle said.
“It was a good season all in all,” he said. “We had some highs and some lows and we return all but two wrestlers (seniors Heinle and Ryan Wilczek) next year.”
Coach Heinle said the Rangely wrestling program is already starting to work toward next year as middle school practice has started and will be coached this season by Claude Rose and Derek Stolworthy.
“We have some young wrestlers who will help out our program over the next few years,” coach Heinle said of the future of Panther wrestling program.