Gila Ridge takes second in DII, earns nine medals

David King is no fan of second place.

But given the circumstances of his Gila Ridge wrestling team's second-place team showing at the Division II State Championships in Prescott Valley on Saturday, he's keeping it in perspective.

“I hate second. I really do,” King said. “Sometimes it's hard, but you have to look and see we had an amazing season. ... The individual success we had is really amazing.”

Leading after the first day, the Kings went 2-6 in Saturday's semifinals. The Hawks finished with 150 points, well behind the 204.5 of Ironwood Ridge and just ahead of third-place Marcos de Niza's 139.5.

“Yesterday was a high to come out leading, but we knew what Ironwood had left,” King said. “It was good to compete with them. If you had to lose to somebody, it's good to lose to a team that works real hard.”

The Hawks ended up with nine medalists. Defending state champ Kevin Jumbeck at 160 and Darryl Lane at 120 each took second. Austin Gerber (113), Abel Mejia (126), Kyle Ford (138), Isaac Saenz (145) and Eddie Pena each took third. Nathan Mendivil was fourth at 106 and Jose Cazares was sixth at 132.

The only other area school with a Division II medalist was Yuma High — James Gomez took third at 182.

For the Hawks, King said he was very pleased and proud of his team. He said the semifinal results stung, but five of those guys coming back to take third was impressive.

“It's hard to make any excuses there,”' King said. “No matter what the seed was, no matter what the call was, we needed to prevail. There's a lot of factors in six different matches. I know the boys are kicking themselves about it. But I had a lot of kids wrestle back and take third. That says a lot.”

Lane lost his title match 6-2 to Sunrise Mountain's Kevin Hunt, not getting on the board until late in the third with an escape.

“It went pretty good up until the finals,” an emotional Lane said. “I just made dumb mistakes I gave up two points at the end of the period, when there was like 10 seconds to go, or five seconds. I gave up stupid points. I did a desperation move at the end. I tried to throw him and didn't succeed. I gave up another two.

“It means a lot. I worked really hard,” Lane said while fighting back tears. “It was worth it. I wouldn't trade it for anything. But I was so close.”

Jumbeck lost 17-11 to Sunrise Mountain's Brennan Smith in the finals in a match stopped multiple times because of a cut on Jumbeck's nose.

“It was all right. I did pretty good until finals,” Jumbeck said. “I battled but he came out on top.”

King said he was impressed with how Jumbeck fought in the final, adding that he was impressed with how his whole team battled. Lane noticed that as well.

“We all worked really hard and we're doing really good as a team,” Lane said. “I'm just really proud of all our guys. A lot of our guys stepped up and we did really good as a team at the tournament. I feel we put out our best performance we could do today. I really do.”

Gerber and Ford each recorded big wins, King said, beating opponents from Marcos de Niza in the medal round. Those wins help stave off the Padres in third place. Gerber trailed in the final period, but got a stalling call and then an escape to pull of the 7-6 comeback. Ford led 1-0 after two but got two takedowns and a nearfall to roll to an 8-2 win.

For Yuma High, Gomez held on for a close 5-3 win in the final.

“James was kind off this weekend, he didn't have the best tournament, but he battled back,” Yuma High coach Jeff Welsing said. “I'm proud of him because he busted his tail and did everything I said for four years. He finished strong.”