CHSAA’s four-peat club underwent another historic expansion Saturday night at Ball Arena.
Four grapplers joined the most prestigious group in Colorado high school wrestling by winning their fourth straight state title, highlighted by the first-ever girls to do it in Pomona’s Persaeus Gomez and Calhan’s Ciara Monger, both of whom finished undefeated.
All four cruised to decisive wins. Meanwhile, two others were denied entrance into the club, as Trinidad’s Eddie Bowman beat Buena Vista’s Caleb Camp at Class 2A 132 pounds and Sand Creek’s Landon Drury pummeled Thompson Valley’s Jackzen Rairdon in the Class 4A 144-pound title.
Mullen’s Dale O’Blia got the four-peat party going with his victory at Class 3A 120 pounds, followed by victories by Gomez at 130, Fort Lupton’s D’mitri Garza-Alarcon at Class 3A 138, and Monger at 235. That tied the previous high of additions in a single year, when four also four-peated in 2020.
Those victories increased the overall four-timer club tally to 34. After no new members last year, there’s now been at least one four-time champion in 10 out of the last 11 years. The first four-time champion was Montrose’s Bob Thompson from 1956-59, and as recently as the turn of the century, there were only eight wrestlers who accomplished the feat.
But over the last couple decades, high school coaches say the explosive growth of youth wrestling has made the “overall level of wrestling continue to come up in Colorado,” as Cherokee Trail’s Jeff Buck pointed out.
“They come in as freshman, they know how to wrestle,” Pomona coach Sam Federico said. “It’s because of the club scene and there’s so many accessible tournaments. Kids can get 100 matches a year now. When I was a kid, you’d get an elementary season or a junior high season of 20 matches, and that was it.”
Over the past decade or so, there’s certainly been some gamesmanship by some four-times who strategically chose a weight bracket that’s devoid of other elite challengers.
But that trend aside, CHSAA wrestling historian Bob Smith, who has witnessed every four-time champion amid his 73 consecutive years at the state tournament, still doesn’t think there’s any shine taken off what’s become a more common accomplishment.
“These four-timers have put in the work going back to childhood, they’re winning the matches, they’re dealing with the pressure, especially as a senior,” Smith said. “I think it’s good for the sport.”
Poudre coach Barrett Golyer agreed, noting that the increase in four-timers is bringing exposure to different programs and communities across the state — and can serve as inspiration for young wrestlers.
“The amount of exposure that (four-timer Jacob Greenwood) brought our school (from 2015-18) was amazing,” Golyer said. “If other schools get that, it’s fantastic, too.”
That hype was evident on Saturday as each winner had a press gaggle after cementing their feat.
O’Blia beat Severance senior Jonathan Morrison 6-0 to jump-start the historic night. Morrison came out with a high motor and initially kept the match close in a state finals rematch between the two. O’Blia scored a takedown late in the first, then got a reversal late in the second to make it 4-0. Another takedown in the third sealed it, and the first standing ovation let loose as O’Blia took a bow.
“(Morrison) came out pretty hot, and I just wanted to try to match his intensity,” said O’Blia, who will wrestle at Princeton. “I’ve pictured that (bowing celebration) since I won my first one as a freshman.”
The first blip in the four-peat extravaganza came in the Class 2A 132-pound patch, when Bowman capped his undefeated season by beating Camp. Bowman had wrestled 138 pounds for much of the season, but moved down to 132 for the postseason in order to challenge Camp.
Bowman dominated in a 7-2 decision, taking a lead off a first-period takedown and never looking back. It marked his second state title after also winning the 132-pound crown in undefeated fashion last year.
After beating Camp, the CSU-Pueblo commit raised his arms to the crowd.
“This is my second title, but no one knew my name,” Bowman said. “People told me I didn’t have any competition (after winning last year). So I went to the Top of the Rockies, beat D’mitri, beat (Ponderosa’s) Tommy Verrette, who won his second. I told myself, if I stay at 138s, why stop there? There was another guy I wanted to chase and that’s Camp.
“I was in (Camp’s) head. He knew who I was before I even got on the mat.”
By the time Garza-Alarcon beat Mullen’s Gilbert Antillon for his crown, you might think the Ball Arena crowd was tiring of the four-peat madness.
Not a chance.
As Garza-Alarcon celebrated with his mom, Angelina, and did a back flip to celebrate his 6-1 win, the fans roared with another standing ovation. Garza-Alarcon plans to wrestle in junior college somewhere after graduation.
“I feel about the same as the first one, but all of the pressure is off,” Garza-Alarcon said.
Following Garza-Alarcon’s triumph, Drury also foiled a four-peat, denying Rairdon his place in history in the Class 4A 144-pound championship. Drury controlled the match from start to finish in an impressive 8-4, wire-to-wire win where Rairdon’s only points came by escapes.
Considering Drury’s resume on the national stage — over the summer, he won the 138-pound title in Greco-Roman at the 2023 Junior National Championships and also won a title at Fargo Nationals — the throttling wasn’t exactly surprising. Drury is currently uncommitted, but has college interest.
After his win, Drury put up four fingers and then made a sleeping gesture with them, because he was putting Rairdon’s four-peat dreams “to sleep.”
“I used my Greco against him, stuck to that, stayed upper-body against him,” said Drury, who didn’t wrestle in the CHSAA postseason the last two years due to eligibility issues associated with his transfer from Falcon to Sand Creek. “This is my first year back in high school, so I wanted to show everybody how far I came in my return. … This is just a milestone towards the top, because I want to be a world and Olympic champion.”
When Gomez won, cruising by Canyon City sophomore Kate Doughty with a first-period pin, the Oklahoma State pledge jumped into the arms of her dad and coach, Victor Gomez.
It took 23 years for boys wrestling, which has been sanctioned since 1936, to have a four-time state champion. But the girls needed only four years to check that box as Gomez became the first to etch her name into the state’s female four-peat club.
“The growth in this sport the last four years has been amazing,” Gomez said. “My dad and I had our ups-and-downs — you know know how fathers and daughters can be — but he’s the biggest support. Without his belief in me, I wouldn’t believe in myself.
“Knowing that I can be a person that girls can look up to is awesome. … Growing up I didn’t have the support in this sport as much. I was constantly told I shouldn’t wrestle, and that it’s a boy’s sport, and that I should go dance or do something else. Being a trailblazer now myself, it’s pretty cool, knowing that little girls now look up to me with goals as big as mine.”
Finally, Monger capped the night with an effortless victory over Fort Lupton senior Anastacia Salazar. The Fort Hayes State commit was determined to finish the consequential night on a high note, for the crowd and of course for herself, en route to a second-round pin.
“It’s very much a relief, because I’ve had all these people coming up to me being like, ‘You better win four.’ It’s so much pressure that’s off me,” Monger said. “I’m overwhelmed with this (feat). My main point and excitement about winning four was for the history of the girls, and to show the next generation that it’s going to be hard, if if you keep pushing forward, you can do this sport.”
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