ALAMOSA — This past weekend marked the regional qualifying for the State Wrestling tournament at the Pepsi Center in Denver. Wrestlers from Alamosa, Center, Centauri, Del Norte, Monte Vista, Mountain Valley-Moffat, Sanford and Sierra Grande-Centennial qualified for the State tournament this weekend.

In Montrose Alamosa finished in first place with a runaway performance that saw six different Moose wrestlers take first place.  Alamosa took the regional title with a team score of 274 points beating their next closest competition Pagosa Springs by 36.5 points. Alamosa will have 11 different grapplers competing in Denver starting this Thursday, Davion Chavez, Elijah De La Cerda, Kason Smith, Joe Chavez, Colton Liddell, Tyler Kenison, Hunter Smith, Kolten Hillis, Andres Mondragon, Austin Trujillo and Logan Thompson in the heavyweight slot. 

Alamosa is a favorite to repeat as the 3A state champions this year, the Moose are ranked as the number one team in 3A according to On the Mat. The ranking service also has three wrestlers as number one in their weight class- De La Cerda, Joe Chavez and Thompson.

Meanwhile in John Mall the 2A teams mixed it up to see who was going to Denver. Centauri took second place at the regional qualifying tournament with 196 team points. The Falcons saw four wrestlers place first in their respective weight classes with 10 wrestlers qualifying for the state tournament in Mario Vigil, Andrew Ross, Eyan Chavez, Jordan Martin, Zach Martin, Zach Buhr, Zach Sandoval, Byron Shawcroft, Jownes Archuleta and top ranked 2A heavyweight Bennie Chacon.

On the Mat has the Falcons ranked fifth as a team entering the state tournament. By contrast the No. 1 team in 2A Wray, saw fourteen wrestlers qualify for state.

Also in attendance at John Mall, Sierra Grande-Centennial qualified three of their own wrestlers for the state tournament. As a team the Panther-Rams finished in fifth place with 81.5 team points. Max Mondragon would be the only wrestler sporting the black and green to top a podium but Alejandro Velasquez and Isabella Durgan would also qualify with second and third place finishes respectively.

Monte Vista would also qualify three wrestlers at the regional meet. For the Pirates it was Tyler Vigil placing first while Nicolas Garcia and Zach Hindes placed third and fourth respectively. According to On the Mat Vigil is ranked No. 2 at 132 pounds.

Sanford will take three of the four wrestlers they suited up for regional competition to the state tournament.  Brady Kuhns took second place at 152 pounds while Gavyn Smith and Max Salazar each earned respective third place finishes.

Center will be represented by Mario Chavez and Eleazar Aguilar at the state tournament. At regionals Chavez and Aguilar both finished in second place in their respective weight classes.

The final two teams to send wrestlers to the state tournament were Del Norte and Mountain Valley-Moffat. For Del Norte it was Keegan Medina who punched his ticket with a fourth place finish at regionals. For Mountain Valley-Moffat Isiah Wellman will move on to the next level having placed second place at regionals.

Matches will begin for 2A/3A on Thursday. Preliminary matches are scheduled to run from 2 to 4:45 p.m. Follow along on CHSAANow and Trackwrestling’s websites.