High school wrestling: Same old song and dance — Delta wins 3A title

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OREM — Motley Crue describes it as, "the same old ball and chain" and Aerosmith refers to it as, "the same old song and dance" — either way, despite what 80s rock band terminology used, Delta had done it again.

The Rabbits nibbled past Payson, 226.0-215.0, at the UCCU Center at Utah Valley University Saturday night for their fourth consecutive 3A state wrestling championship.

"Well, it's pretty sweet," said Delta's senior Kohl Tolbert after winning the championship every year of his high school career. "As the seniors kept leaving it leaves more pressure on you and you just got to pick it up. It's the tradition that keeps Delta going."

Uintah (169.5), Wasatch (132.5), Cedar (118.0), Tooele (108.0), Bear River (105.0), Desert Hills (90.5), Juab (88.0) and Hurricane (84.0) rounded out the top 10.

Heading into the second day, Delta had established a considerable lead, however, behind Jed Mellen, Zac Loveless and Cole Ford all capturing individual medals for Payson. The lead quickly evaporated.

In total, 14 individual wrestlers captured title medals: Delta's Tolbert (106), Cedar's Dusty Hone (113), Spanish Fork's Branson Ashworth (120), Wasatch's Morgan Sweat (126), Payson's Mellen (132), Loveless (138) and Ford (145), Hurricane's Zach Prince (152), Uintah's Chet Boren (160), Tooele's Zach Coffman (170), Delta's Ryan Peterson (182), Cedar's Cameron Williamson (195), Hurricane's Brian Scott (220) and Desert Hills' Kalob Stevenson (285).

Cedar's Hone, Wasatch's Sweat, Hurricane's Prince and Scott all repeated as champions.

Once again, Delta was only able to produce two individual state champions, but proved that depth is everything in wrestling with 20 wrestlers qualifying for the tournament.

Rabbits' coach Josh Wright was aware of that heading into the tournament and new that if they played their own game, things would work out.

"We always continue to stress the same thing," he said. "When you set a goal, you can't spend a lot of time looking side-to-side. The fastest way to go north is to head north. I think we got to focus on (ourselves)."

Email: tphibbs@desnews.com

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