State season

I spent my Saturday at the Class 5A state wrestling tournament, and there undoubtedly were several highlights.

No, it was more than Hutch's Romero Cotton winning his fourth straight state title, in addition to his four team football titles, making him the first to do so in Kansas history. It was more than Ark City's Trison Graham winning his fourth state title.

Two surprise champs stole the show. At 135 pounds, Valley Center sophomore Cade Blair, after upsetting Hutch's Colby Crank in the second round on Friday, completed an unlikely title run on Saturday night against Joe Hagan of Kapaun. It was the strangest match of the tournament. Through two rounds, it was all defense. Blair got one point in the opening round with an escape, and held on for a 1-0 win. Hagan slowly crawled out from under Blair in the third round and actually got on top of his back. It looked like two points for Hagan, but Blair kept a hold around one of Hagan's legs, though Hagan was on top of him. After about 10 seconds in this position, the referee called a tie-up and sent them to the middle of the mat for a restart. Blair's just a sophomore, and he's a rising star for the Valley Center program. It was a hard-fought match, and kudos to Blair for gutting it out.

The second great match of the tourney was Pete Tapia of Winfield versus undefeated Kyle Detmer of Bishop Carroll. Detmer was undefeated, 34-0 on the season. The defending champ had beaten Tapia, also a defending state champ, twice during the regular season, both pins. But Detmer was totally caught off guard in this title match. Tapia somehow found a way to just dominate Detmer, winning 5-0. The fact that he didn't give up a point to a guy who pinned him twice previously is incredible.

Sub-state starts this week. Go to the forums and post about players who stand out.