Knights dominate Lancer Smith Memorial

WASILLA — The Colony Knights dominated the Lancer Smith Memorial wrestling tournament at the Menard Center over the weekend. On Saturday, the Knights crowned three tournament champions on their way to a 20-point lead in the race for the team title at the state’s biggest high school wrestling tournament.

“We just want to dominate,” Colony’s Jared Hopkins said.

Hopkins won the Lancer Smith title at 135 and was joined by teammate Vincent Cramer at 152. Colony’s Theresa Savo also won the 103-pound weight class in the girls tournament over East Anchorage’s Jamiezon Garcia with a fall in just over five minutes. The Knights team totaled 247.5 points, and were trailed by Lathrop at 224.5. Wasilla took seventh place in the team standings and Colton Lindquist won the title at 171 for the Warriors. Palmer finished 11th.

Hopkins faced Niko Mayo from South Anchorage in the final, a familiar foe. Hopkins had lost to Mayo in the state finals last year, but defeated Mayo two weeks ago at South and again on Saturday. Hopkins started the second period off with a takedown and held his lead easily, keeping Mayo from escaping until the final moments of the third period and holding on for the 2-1 victory for the title. Hopkins also holds the title of being Vincent Cramer’s favorite wrestler to watch.

Cramer joined Hopkins with a title in much different fashion. Wrestling defending Division II state champion Mose Hayes from Homer, Cramer started scoring early and kept allowing Hayes to escape so that he could earn another takedown. Cramer’s 20-5 victory came as a technical fall and padding the Knights lead in the team standings near the end of the tournament and handing Hayes his first loss of the year.

“We performed well. I know we can still do better, but we had six guys in the finals in a row. We had two guy champions, we got a girls champion at 103 that was really dominant,” Colony head coach Todd Hopkins said.

After Savo earned her title in the girls tournament, Colony’s finalists struggled to win on the boys mat. TJ Clapp earned a second-place finish at 125 and Kayden Payne suffered an injury in his match for the 130-pound title.

At 140, Aidan Ehmann started off scoring in bunches against Theo Cha of South Anchorage. The two long, athletic, defending state champion wrestlers acrobatically maneuvered around and over each other for three long rounds as Cha chipped away at Ehmann’s lead, earning a takedown in the final seconds of the third period to send the match to overtime where Cha would earn the 140 title by scoring just as overtime had begun, handing Ehmann the his first loss of the season.

Cha was named Most Outstanding Wrestler of the varsity tournament, and Colony’s Ethan Connaker was named MOW for the junior varsity tournament.

“I had some great competition this weekend and it just turned out to be one hell of a tournament,” Connaker said.

Ethan Kraus also made the final for Colony at 145 but was defeated 3-2 by Lathrop’s Kobe Ames. Finishing in third place for the Knights was Evan Holmes at 103, Elijah Larsen at 112, Rett Gallager at 135 and Daniel Van Slyke at 285. Wasilla also placed two wrestlers in the finals. At 119 lbs, Alex Logsdon battled Aedyn Concepcion from South Anchorage in a battle of 2018 state finalists. Logsdon and Concepcion were unable to generate any scoring until the third period when Concepcion took a lead and held it for the 6-2 victory.

In the final match of the night, Lindquist provided perhaps the most exciting ending of a match over the course of the whole weekend.

“I barely had anything but i just kept remembering that my coach wanted me to keep going and keep pushing past my limit because he said you still have 60 percent after you think you’re done. So I just thought of that the whole time and I just kept going and when I took him down I was really happy,” Lindquist said.

Tied at 3 in the final minute of the final match of the tournament, Lindquist and Soldotna’s Sean Babbitt circled each other in the center of the mat. Lindquist made his move with just over 30 seconds left, grabbing hold of Babbitt’s left leg before spinning and tripping Babbitt for the takedown with 25 seconds left in the match. Lindquist was happy to have won the tournament, and set his hopes for the end of the season as high as he could.

“I want to win regions and by state I want no one to come close to me by the time I take that title,” Lindquist said.