High school wrestling: Vikings take Region 2 title for 18th straight year

KEARNS — The Region 2 wrestling tournament had a lot of the old, and a little bit of the new Thursday night at Kearns High School.

To nobody's surprise, Viewmont won the team competition. The Vikings won region for the 18th straight year and qualified an amazing 23 athletes to next week's 5A state meet. They had six individual winners and accumulated 468 points.

Kearns finished second, followed by Taylorsville, West, Hunter and Granger.

While the team title was never in question, there were plenty of individual heroics from virtually every team, each anxious to show they could compete with the Davis County juggernaut that moved from Region 1 this season.

"Viewmont had a lot of depth in all weight classes," said West coach Mike Schmidt. "They have a big advantage on us because we (Salt Lake District schools) don't offer wrestling in our junior highs."

"It's hard to compete against a team like them," added Kearns coach Tyson Linnell. "They're a dynasty. They're solid."

Tanner Luke, Austin Johnson, Kanchi Abe, Matt Wilcox, Lawson Essig and Colton Hadley each earned individual crowns for Viewmont and each hope to give the Vikings momentum next week. Viewmont has won seven state wrestling championships in its 48-year history, but all have come in the last 10 years.

"We had 13 out of 14 kids make it into the finals today," said coach Brandon Ripplinger. "This is a good tuneup for state. We hadn't had a match in three weeks. We will have our hands full at state. It's a tough field."

Viewmont got a taste of how tough it can be at various times Thursday.

Most of their defeats came to the hands of Kearns wrestlers, but one little West athlete made a name for himself.

Will Lang, a freshman who moved to Salt Lake from New Jersey a couple of years ago, continued his phenomenal season by beating Viewmont's Korbin Smoot in a close decision, 5-4.

Lang became West's first region champion since 2007, Schmidt said. When it was over, he couldn't have been prouder.

"He's a freshman and came in seeded number one, so it was no upset," Schmidt said. "(Having a freshman win) doesn't happen often. It's the first time since I've been here."