Mean Moose in 6th place entering final day

Davion Chavez of Alamosa cradles Skyview’s Ezra Herrera in the 3A 113 pound semifinals. Chavez will face Angelo Lozado in the championship. (VC/Jiron)

DENVER — Wrestlers continued hitting the mat hard for day two of action.

And now the only thing left is championship Saturday. Seven valley schools made the trip up north to Denver to compete at the Pepsi Center.

In 3A, Alamosa is attempting to threepeat and that is a difficult task for anyone. At the close of day 2, the Mean Moose wrestling team was holding on to the No. 6 spot trailing leader Jefferson by 24 points. Alamosa will need to do it without Brandon Reveles, Trevor Maestas, Zeke Rangel, Logan Garcia and Zaq Bernal as all five wrestlers were eliminated from contention on day two.

Still standing, Kyler Liddell picked up a win in the quarterfinals early in the day, but couldn’t get past first-seeded Roberto Estrada of Weld Central falling by a 6-3 decision. Liddell will await an opponent in the consolation bracket Saturday morning.

At 113 pounds, first-seeded junior Davion Chavez continued on the warpath with two more victories — a quarterfinal pin and riding the momentum in the semifinals to a 5-0 decision.

Chavez will meet defending champion Angelo Lozado in Saturday’s championship. Colton Liddell started Friday with a win but couldn’t keep it going in the semifinals dropping a 10-4 decision to second-seeded Noah Damien of Valley.

Liddell will also await an opponent. The final Alamosa wrestler still active on Saturday is Austin Trujillo at 195 pounds.

A loss early on Friday didn’t dampen Trujillo’s spirits and the Alamosa senior took down Brian Garcia of Eagle Valley for his first win in the consolation bracket.

Trujillo will face Casey Harvey from Bennet, the winner will go on to meet Eaton’s Logan Bean in the consolation quarterfinals.

Despite 16 of the 24 wrestlers from the valley that qualified for the 2A state tournament being eliminated on day 2, the 2A class still has plenty of intrigue. As a team, Centauri also has five wrestlers still active entering the final day of the state tournament. The Falcons as a team were No. 6 in the team standings with 59 points. Wray is the runaway favorite to take state with 129 points.

Still active for the Falcons, Mario Vigil began his Friday facing the No. 1 seed in the 2A 106-pound weight class.

After falling by a 3-1 decision, Vigil went back to work in a valley matchup eliminating Dominic Lopez of Monte Vista. The win sets up a win-or-go-home meeting with Del Norte’s Malachi Gallegos on Saturday morning. Gallegos earned his way to the Saturday matchup with a 10-2 major decision over Kody Ingols of Hayden. At 120 pounds, Monte Vista’s DeAngelo Archuleta has been a wrecking ball in the consolation bracket with a fall and a decision paving the way for a meeting with Highland’s Logan Lewis. Lewis entered the tournament as the second seed.

In the 132-pound class, Centauri’s Eyan Chavez picked up a win early on Friday and but couldn’t build on it falling behind to Lain Yapoujian of Byers. Yapoujian took a 3-1 decision. Chavez will await an opponent in the consolation semis.

Centauri junior Jordan Martin overcame a tough start to Friday overcoming a loss to Cedaredge’s Adrian Nieto to bounce back in the consolation bracket with an 8-5 decision over Aiden Michael of County Line. He will face Reid Brown of Wray for the right to compete in the consolation semifinals.

Centauri’s Byron Shawcroft also bounced back from an early Friday loss with a victory over Buena Vista’s Seth Moss by fall at 1:17. Shawcroft will start his Saturday against Ty Walck of Cedaredge.

The final wrestler from 2A to make it to championship day was Remi Lucero of Centauri. In the 2A heavyweight class, Lucero stayed undefeated in tournament competition with two more wins by pin on Friday meaning the Centauri senior will be competing for an individual title on Saturday night.

Lucero will face Rocky Ford’s Peyton Froman. Lucero has some reasons for optimism. By seed, Lucero is No. 2 and will be favored there and Lucero faced Froman in January and defeated him by a 4-1 decision at the Alamosa Duals. For a complete listing of brackets and results be sure to visit CHSAANow.com.