Solo victory

Las Vegas senior earns state title in 4A championships

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Only a few high school sports programs in Southern Nevada can claim to have a dynasty in Class 4A competition, but only one program can say it has won four straight and six of the last eight NIAA state championships in its sport -- the Cimarron-Memorial wrestling team.

Riding the backs of three seniors who won individual state championships, the Spartans won the title over Mojave, 108-84, on Feb. 11 in the meet, hosted by Cimarron.

Leading six-time Sunrise Regional winner Las Vegas to its fourth-place (69 1/2 points) finish was senior Mike Ruggiero, who won the 135-pound title by beating Mojave's Colby Evans, 7-6, with a two-point takedown with 1:29 left in the third period. Ruggiero won his first state championship after being a runner-up last year.

Las Vegas, which won its sixth straight Sunrise title earlier in the month, had two runners-up at state in Miguel Garcia (160) and Zack Williams (189); one third-place finisher in Jarrell Price (140); and one fourth-place in Mark Skinner (112) for coach Joe LaRocco.

The Wildcats were the last team besides Cimarron to win state, taking home the honors in 2001 and 2002.

Pinning down its fourth straight state crown was no easy task this year for the Spartans, who lost to the Rattlers in two divisional dual meets earlier this season and in the Sunset Regional by just 2 1/2 points. Cimarron also lost several key wrestlers from last year's team, which captured six individual state titles.

But led by senior state champions Gabe Suarez (125 pounds), Zeth St. Clair (152) and Randel Aleman (145), who won his fourth straight individual state title, Cimarron was able to win the big match that comes at the end of every season. Mojave had as many second-place finishers (two) and more third- (three) and fourth-place finishers (two) than the Spartans, but only one state championship to Cimarron's three.

Mike Garcia, co-coach of Cimarron along with Tim Jeffries, talked about why this championship was harder than last year's.

"It was much tougher," Garcia said. "We had a lot of young kids come in the (wrestling) room and take over some new spots. We lost eight seniors and then we had one of our good kids blow his knee out in the first meet of the year and we never got him back, so we had to replace nine kids. We didn't have a lot of veterans that had been there before this year."

Capping off a storybook season and a phenomenal prep career on the state level with his fourth consecutive state title -- a first in school history -- was Aleman, who defeated Bonanza's Thomas Hammontree, 26-11, in his 145-pound title match. Aleman also had won his fourth straight regional title earlier in the month.

The senior became the 22nd prep wrestler in Nevada history to accomplish the feat of winning state all four years.

Making the championship even sweeter for Aleman was the fact he participated with a bad right knee after tearing ligaments and the meniscus in his knee in the second game of the football season as quarterback of the Spartans football team.

Garcia said Aleman's success despite the injury was quite a feat.

"It's extremely impressive," he said. "You're surprised that he would even have a shot at it. And he elected to have the surgery that would allow him to come back. They didn't repair all the damage -- he's got all kinds of stuff still wrong in there and they didn't repair it all. He just did enough (surgery) to make it to where he could wrestle."

Garcia said the knee looks pretty nasty after a meet.

"After every single tournament, the knee is huge," he said. "You look at it at the end of any tournament and it's twice the size of his other knee. It's amazing he is able to keep going on like that."

Aleman, who is being sought after by Arizona State and Michigan, went a remarkable 159-21 over his prep career and plans on wrestling in the National High School Wrestling Championships scheduled for March 20-26 at the Petersen Events Center in Pittsburgh before getting his knee completely taken care of.

Garcia said the coaches and young grapplers in the Cimarron program will miss Aleman.

"From Day One, he's been there. I don't recall him missing a practice in his four years -- if he has, I certainly don't recall it," Garcia said. "And that's huge. It's hard to get better if you can't come to practice. Everything he's done in terms of the program has been great for us and obviously great for him, but to me the biggest part of it all is his dedication to our team, to our school."

Winning the Spartans' first title in the finals was 125-pounder Suarez, the Sunset's top-seed and a two-time state runner-up and three-time regional champion. Suarez defeated Chaparral's Lyndon Shinn, 21-9.

Garcia talked about the special qualities possessed by Suarez, who went 165-29 in his prep career.

"His work ethic is what stands out for him," he said. "Whenever we want to have a kid to step it up in our room, we put him with Gabe. And they don't want to go (work out) with Gabe because he makes you go the whole practice 100 percent."

St. Clair, a runner-up at state last year and two-time regional champ, captured the Spartans' third title, beating Del Sol senior Chris Dunfield, 17-7, in the 152-pound weight class championship match.

"He's done a great job for us," Garcia said of St. Clair. "I think he had the most wins on the team this year. He went 50-6, and I'll bet you more than 40 of them were by pins."

Cimarron also received valuable points in the state meet from Anthony Morales (215) and Neil Spencer (275), who finished second in their weight classes, respectively, and Mike Yazdabadi (103), who finished fourth.

Demonstrating once again that the strength in wrestling in the Silver State resides in the Northwest and Northeast Divisions of Las Vegas was the fact that three of the top four teams at state and eight of the 14 individual titles went to grapplers from northern area schools.

The most surprising state title came in the 103-pound class, where Mojave freshman Travis DeGroat defeated Damonte Ranch's Jordan O'Neal, 13-3, in the championship match.

DeGroat wrestled in a special pigtail entry round to earn a spot in the quarterfinals, where he upset Valley's Thomas Hernandez, the top seed from the Sunrise, in the semifinals. DeGroat then surprised Cimarron's Yazdabadi in the semifinals before knocking off the North's top seed, O'Neal, for all the marbles.

The Mojave freshman's performance caught the eye of Garcia.

"Anytime you have a supposed JV wrestler coming in and winning the state championship, obviously he's done a great job," Garcia said.

Mojave, which edged out third-place finisher Churchill County by a half-point, had runners-up in Colby Evans (135) and David Jordan (140); three third-place finishers in Jake Evans (103), Alan Berg (171) and Reggie Powers (189); and two fourth-place finishers in Bill Stutzman (152) and DeAndre Taylor (130), a state champion at 119 pounds last year.

Finishing in ninth place at state with 32 1/2 points was Palo Verde, led by junior Kyle Barrett, the top seed from the Sunset, who defeated Mojave's Jordan in the 140-pound championship match to help the Panthers and coach Kris Davis become the third Northwest Division school to finish in the top 10 at state.

Garcia spoke highly about Davis' program at Palo Verde.

"They do a great job over there," Garcia said. "They're a class program. I really like their coach. We need people like that. And we know we have to work our butts off to stay near the top with them there."

Another Northwest school that performed well was Cheyenne, coached by Mike Abrams and finishing 12th at state with 25 points. The team had its own state champion in Sean Alfreno, a senior who defeated Galena's Doug Del Porto in the title match at 112 pounds.

Finishing in 13th place, a point behind Cheyenne, was Rancho, coached by Mike Abrams. The Rams had an individual winner in Michael Waite, who beat Cimarron's Spencer for the 275-pound crown.

The only other champion from Southern Nevada and the only one to come from south of Sahara Avenue was Durango's Joey Martin, who won the 119-pound crown by beating Green Valley's Edgar Hernandez. Martin, a transfer from Connecticut, won three state titles there, amassing a 148-2 record along the way before completing his senior year winning the NIAA state title with the Trailblazers.

Durango finished 14th at state with 23 points for first-year coach Joe Ireland.

Martin, ranked 13th in the nation in his weight class, also won last year's FILA junior nationals title in Las Vegas, as well as the New England championship last season.

Other local schools that finished well at state were Green Valley (10th, 29 1/2 points); Bonanza (11th, 26); Chaparral (16th, 17); second-year schools Del Sol and Spring Valley (tied for 17th, 15); Liberty (19th, 14); Eldorado and Foothill (tied for 21st, 8); Silverado (23rd, 6); Coronado (24th, 4); and Basic (tied for 25th, 3).

As far as reloading for a possible fifth straight state title next year, Cimarron's Garcia knows it will be a great deal harder for him and coach Jeffries without his three state champion seniors on the mat.

"When you got three kids like that where you can get them into the (state) finals and count on them winning, it's hard (to see them graduating)," he said. "But we feel good about what we have coming back. We have some young kids making some great strides, but you can't replace the kind of horsepower those three guys gave us. It will be painful to see them leave."