PARK CITY – Newton senior Nick Treaster has often mentioned good mat awareness as one of the many elements of his success throughout his storied high school wrestling career.
 
But Treaster had no idea what was coming in the moments after he won his fourth Class 5A state wrestling title on Saturday at Hartman Arena.
 
When Treaster headed to the Railer coaches’ corner after post-match handshakes following his 8-2 decision over Goddard’s Levi Glover in the 120-pound final, his oldest brother, Logan – a 2015 state champion and Newton assistant the last two seasons – was waiting.

 
Big brother picked Nick off his feet and spun him around twice with a big smile on his face.
 
“If you know my brother, he’s not like that,” Treaster said. “He’s very reserved and he does not show any emotion. So when he spun me around, I didn’t know if he was going to throw me or not.
 
“I was actually really scared for a second, but it was awesome.”
 
Treaster’s latest title certainly merited a little something extra. Nick and his father, Matt, became the first father-son duo in Kansas to each win four state titles. Matt Treaster accomplished the feat for Beloit from 1981-84.
 
With Logan’s title in 2015 and older brother Grant’s 5A championships in 2018 and 2019, Nick raised the immediate family’s state gold-medal count to 11. And with Hoxie’s Derek Johnson locking down his fourth Class 3-2-1A crown on Saturday in Hays, he and Treaster became the 39^th and 40^th wrestlers in Kansas to reach that milestone, according to a list compiled by the Kansas Wrestling Coaches Association.
 
“It was pretty nerve-racking,” said Treaster, who defeated Glover in the finals for the second straight year and finished his high school career with a 144-5 record. “Growing up, I’ve been coming here since I was 3 years old watching all the legends who came through Newton High School. I just could not wait to get out here.
 
“To win four titles is crazy. I always really wanted to do it. I just had to take it one match at a time and not get ahead of myself.”
 
Treaster, the 5A champion at 106 pounds his first two seasons and 113 a year ago, posted a 36-1 record in his final season. The lone loss came at the Kansas City Stampede to Liberty (Mo.) junior Hunter Taylor, who won his second Missouri Class 4 title at 120 on Saturday.
 
Treaster’s goal against Glover was to avoid being taken down. Glover took the early lead in their Andover regional final matchup last week before Treaster rallied for a second-period pin.
 
“I’m not getting taken down and I’m getting my scores,” Treaster said. “That was my mental process the entire time. It’s kind of hard to press him because he knows my style so well.
 
“He wanted to keep the match close and probably try to pull something out at the end, but I just kept the pressure on him throughout the entire match.”
 
Treaster blanked Glover for the first two periods, building a 4-0 lead with a takedown and two back points. He put himself in firm control with another takedown early in the third before Glover registered his first escape.
 
Logan Treaster said Nick’s wrestling style encompasses the best of his older siblings. Logan’s technical, hard-nosed approach and Grant’s free-flowing elusiveness led them to collegiate careers at the U.S. Naval Academy, where their father wrestled and where Nick will compete next season.

 
“Nick does a really good job of balancing that elusiveness and being relaxed with really good movement, but also staying tight on the attention to details,” Logan Treaster said. “He blends those moves and explosiveness with being hard-nosed and fighting for every point. It makes him really, really difficult to deal with.”
 
When the final whistle sounded Saturday, Treaster got a congratulatory hug from Glover, who finished his career as a three-time state medalist. He then tossed his headgear to Logan before the official raised his arm, and briefly flashed four fingers as he passed a row of mat-side photographers.
 
Logan then caught Nick with an impromptu celebration that surprised them both.
 
“It’s been one of those things in the household that’s just not a topic that’s been discussed,” Logan Treaster said of Nick’s title haul. “Nobody brings it up, nobody mentions that we’re going for four, but everybody knows. I was happy for him and just very, very proud.”
 

AQUINAS’ CARROLL, ELMORE EXIT WITH TITLES; GALLET TAKES DOWN NOS. 1 AND 2
 
St. Thomas Aquinas senior Sean Carroll nearly resigned himself to the thought of going beyond regulation time in his 190-pound final with Kapaun Mt. Carmel’s Nathan Fury when the door to a state title swung wide open.
 
Locked in a 1-1 duel with Fury, a senior who, like Carroll, was looking for his first 5A championship, the two stood engaged at the shoulders in the center circle with 30 seconds remaining.
 
“It felt like neither of us could really do anything, said Carroll, a Northern Illinois signee. “I tried some stuff, but it was tough. He was stronger than I expected. I was prepared to go into overtime.”
 
Then it happened. Carroll shucked Fury’s arms and pushed him as Fury tried to steady his left foot. But Fury fell backward to the mat and Carroll quickly pounced for a takedown that ultimately gave him a 3-2 victory in a battle of the state’s top two ranked 190-pounders for all classes.

 
“I think he stepped back and when he stepped back, I shoved him as hard as I could,” said Carroll, one of three Aquinas wrestlers who were crowned champions Saturday along with senior Dylan Elmore and sophomore Caden Gallet. “I don’t know if he slipped or stepped on something, but he fell back and I just jumped on him.”
 
Fury, a second-, third- and fourth-place finisher in previous seasons, scored an escape to give himself a chance in the closing seconds. But Carroll fended off his desperate attempts for the go-ahead takedown, leaving Fury with 169 career victories and visibly frustrated.
 
For Carroll, who prevailed in the lone high school meeting with Fury after losing to him as an eighth-grader, the victory also helped atone for a loss to Goddard’s Kaden Glass in last year’s 195-pound final.
 
“It made me train all off-season and work way harder than I ever have,” Carroll said. “I’m glad it paid off.”
 
Elmore’s second consecutive 5A title featured less drama but plenty of action. The Navy-bound Elmore registered six takedowns in a 13-5 major decision over Maize junior Jayden Ford to kick off the championship session.
 
“My whole mentality is to score points the whole time,” said Elmore, who won at 160 pounds a year ago. “I don’t really care if I win or lose. I’m just there to score constantly. If I can’t score on top, I’m going to score on my feet.”
 
Winning took care of itself with Elmore’s approach. On Saturday, he capped a three-year run with 123 victories in 127 matches, with each season ending in the state finals.
 
Elmore dropped his lone match in a 42-1 senior season in early December. After breezing to first-period pins in his first two state matches, Elmore scored 27 points in his last two to win by major decisions.
 
“I lost in my second tournament in the finals because I was still out of shape from football,” Elmore said. “So from then on, I just focused on my cardio and I don’t really get tired that much now.
 
“I think now is the best I’ve ever been. It’s been a dream of mine to wrestle Divison I and I’m excited to get started.”
 
Gallet still has two high school seasons to go, but he secured his first title by defeating the two wrestlers ahead of him in the KWCA’s 5A 106-pound rankings. Gallet came from behind in a 5-4 semifinal win Friday over Newton sophomore Taylor Rickard.

 
Against Verbeck, he swung the momentum in the third period with a reversal and two back points after starting in the down position.
 
“I basically just kept moving,” Gallet said of the sequence that turned a 3-2 deficit into a 6-3 lead. “If you keep moving, you’ll never get rode out.”
 
The third-ranked Gallet finished the season 28-9, pinning his first two state opponents late in the third period. That set him up for his first meetings of the season with No. 2 Rickard and No. 1 Verbeck.
 
Gallet’s victory over Rickard started a 5-0 run through the semifinals for the Saints. The victory over Rickard provided a second dose of satisfaction.
 
“I feel like I haven’t been noted because I haven’t wrestled very many of these kids,” Gallet said. “It kind of put a fire under my butt.”
 

SEAMAN’S THOMAS PUTS PLAN INTO MOTION
 
Wrestling in the heavyweight division for the first time this season, Seaman senior Jaxson Thomas had to learn what he could and couldn’t do against opponents as an undersized 225-pounder.
 
One thing Thomas ultimately did was win a Class 5A championship.
 
Forced to adjust his approach after a 9-4 regional final loss to Blue Valley Southwest’s top-ranked senior, Torin Forsyth, Thomas avenged the loss in Saturday’s state final, pinning Forsyth late in the second period and spoiling his second straight finals appearance.
 
“I was just going through the year trying to have fun,” said Thomas, a Coffeyville Community College-bound running back who moved up two weight classes after qualifying for state last year at 195. “I didn’t think I’d get this far at all. I think the change for me was just trying to make the last year count.”
 
Thomas started the season ranked fifth in the weight class. He entered state at No. 2 behind Forsyth, whose defense proved too strong for Thomas at the 5A East regional hosted by Blue Valley Southwest.
 
“He’s way different than anyone else I’ve wrestled,” Thomas said. Everyone else I wrestle, I try to push the pace, get to their legs, sweep around, get out from under them. With Torin, I can’t take a shot on him. He’s really strong and his hips are really good.”
 
So Thomas went to work on an alternate plan with Seaman coach Tony Pena. They focused on tie-ups and finding ways for Thomas to use his speed to work around Forsyth.
 
When Thomas scored a takedown just under 30 seconds into the state title match, his confidence soared.

“It proved to me real fast that what I’d prepared would work,” Thomas said. “It was just the whole plan coming together. It was great. As soon as I felt it, I felt faster than him and that I could really go to work on him.”
 
It came to a crescendo midway through the second period, when each wrestler took the other to the mat during a series of moves and counters. On the final one, Thomas spun as he threw Forsyth across his body and covered him for the pin in front of Seaman’s coaches.
 
Thomas finished with a 46-5 record, while Forsyth lost for just the second time in 45 matches.
 
“I’m not the weakest 225 pounds,” Thomas said. “Against bigger kids who outweighed me, I think I had just enough muscle to not let guys push me around. Being lighter made me a little faster than I was in the lower weight class.”
 

ALL IN THE FAMILY: GODDARD’S GOODWIN, HAYS’ ZIMMERMAN AND ANDOVER’S MAKI
FOLLOW RELATIVES TO TOP OF PODIUM
 
One came a decade later. The others came roughly 48 hours later.
 
But in each case, Goddard’s Jacob Goodwin, Hays’ Harley Zimmerman and Andover’s Adam Maki won 5A titles Saturday that figured to make already happy families simply overjoyed.
 
Goodwin’s 10-0 major decision over Salina Central senior Dawson Hogan in the 144-pound final had a historic twist. Two days earlier, Goodwin’s sister, AshLynn, won her second Class 6-5A girls title, taking the 140-pound class.

 
The Goodwins became the first brother-sister champions duo since KSHSAA conducted the inaugural girls state tournament in 2020.
 
“It definitely had me pumped up,” said Jacob Goodwin, a sophomore who improved on his fourth-place finish at 132 pounds a year ago. “Knowing that we could be the first brother-sister duo put a little bit of pressure on me.
 
“But at the same time, it was motivating to make history together because we’ve been through the most together.”
 
Goodwin defeated Hogan for the third time this season and the second in as many weeks to finish a 36-6 season. He won their regional final meeting with an 18-3 technical fall.
 
“At first, he felt more ready for this match than he was last week,” said Goodwin, who needed most of the first period to break through for his first takedown. “But I still felt like I was in control.”
 
Goodwin’s title match followed two high-energy thrillers that featured Zimmerman at 132 pounds and Maki at 138. Zimmerman, a state runner-up in the weight class in 2022, scored a takedown in the final seconds of the first extra period for a 6-4 sudden victory over Aquinas sophomore Kaden Allen.
 
Zimmerman yielded a reversal to Allen early in the third period that tied the match. The two scrambled for the lead through the rest of regulation and most of the extra period before Zimmerman got the winning points with three seconds on the clock.
 
“Whatever it takes to get the job done,” said Zimmerman, who was stretched to overtime for the first time in his 35-2 season. “I just had to keep grinding until I got it, basically.”
 
Zimmerman’s first state title came on the heels of his cousin Sarah Zimmerman’s 6-5A 110-pound championship victory over Hutchinson’s Anna Cullens in Thursday’s girls state finals. Like the Zimmerman-Allen match, that was a matchup of the top two wrestlers in their respective classes.
 
Zimmerman was inspired by seeing Sarah, a senior, win a state title in her final high school match.
 
“The Zimmerman gang always gets the job done,” he said.
 
It had been 10 years since a Maki won a state title for Andover when Adam, a junior, completed a 51-1 season on Saturday with a 9-6 decision over Maize senior and former state champion Nakaylen Shabazz.
 
Maki, a fifth-place finisher at 138 last season, joined his brother, Lukas, the 2013 132-pound champion in 5A, as gold-medal winners. Maki’s victory came a year after another older brother, Gabe, dropped a 3-1 decision to Emporia’s Xerarch Tungjaroenkul in the 145-pound title match.

 
Gabe’s words of wisdom played a part in Adam’s third victory in as many tries this season against Shabazz, the 5A 113-pound champion two years ago.
 
“Gabe tells me to wrestle through every position and don’t worry about winning or losing or how the match is going,” Adam Maki said. “Just wrestle the right way and it will turn out how it should.”
 
That approach made Maki oblivious to time and score when Shabazz knotted the match at 6-6 with a third-period takedown. Maki didn’t panic, regaining the lead with an escape. He then added a takedown for the final margin.
 
It completed a thrilling season trilogy for the pair, who first wrestled when Maki was 8. Shabazz pinned him in the first period back then, but Maki went 3-0 against him this winter with victories in the Newton Tournament of Champions and 5A West regional finals.
 
“I knew it was going to be a hard match,” said Maki, who trailed Shabazz 5-0 at regionals before rallying for a pin early in the third period. “I just went out there pushing the pace as hard as I could for as long as I could, and it ended up going my way in the end.”
 

AND OH: BV SOUTHWEST’S CRONK, EMPORIA’S TUNGJAROENKUL CAP UNBEATEN TITLE RUNS
 
All that stood between Blue Valley Southwest senior Cole Cronk and an unbeaten state title run on Saturday was a balky right knee that needs surgery and a 4-0 second-period deficit to a past state champion.
 
Yikes.
 
“It was definitely not the ideal start to the match,” Cronk said after he rallied for a 7-4 decision over Goddard junior Zach Wessley to win the 5A 157-pound title. “But I’ve been envisioning at the end of every practice just fighting for that championship.
 
“This is my last match ever and it just took everything out of me.”
 
Cronk, with a 27-0 record, joined Emporia senior Xerarch Tungjaroenkul as 5A champions who went through their weight class unscathed. Tungjaroenkul finished 38-0 at 150 pounds and won his second straight state title with a hard-fought 3-1 decision over Maize’s Clayton Bowers.


Cronk is scheduled to undergo surgery to repair a lateral collateral ligament tear in his right knee on March 2. He sustained the injury in Southwest’s season-opening tournament, but was able to delay surgery until season’s end.
 
“It was not the most ideal situation for the season,” added Cronk, who tweaked the injury during his semifinal victory over Valley Center’s Easton Boone on Friday. “Yeah, a torn LCL. It’s time to get off my feet.”
 
Cronk, 5A’s top-ranked wrestler at 157, was feeling no pain midway through the second period, when he started his comeback with a reveral and two back points to tie Wessley heading into the final period. In the third, he quickly worked his way out of the down position for an escape and a 5-4 lead, then added a takedown with over a minute remaining.
 
Cronk, who finished third at 152 last season after losing in the semifinals to eventual champion Jerrdon Fisher of Goddard, finished his career with 29 straight victories. He savored the applause after securing his first state title in his farewell match.
 
“After all these years of wrestling, there’s not really any panic anymore,” Cronk said. “It was just more of a sense of urgency and getting my mind right, staying focused on the positions and not doing anything irrational.
 
“My whole heart was into that match and I’m just very proud of the outcome.”
 
Tungjaroenkul wrapped up another impressive season with his third victory of the winter against Bowers in a 1 vs. 2 battle. The Emporia standout, who stood out at tournaments the past two seasons with a fur hat his father purchased for him, yielded one point to Bowers in each of their meetings.

 
“We had wrestled a couple times so we knew what each other wanted to do,” Tungjaroenkul said. “I didn’t get a takedown in the first like I wanted but I still ended up on top.
 
“It made me a little more conservative because I knew if I made a mistake the score would be a whole lot closer than if I had gotten that takedown in the first. I was still able to wrestle how I needed to.”
 
Tungjaroenkul was 38-0 at his primary weight, but wrestled up to 157 in December at the Dodge City Invitational. There, he dropped a 9-1 major decision in the finals to four-time Class 3-2-1A champion Derek Johnson of Hoxie. The match served him well, Tungjaroenkul said.
 
“Just wrestling him and how skilled he is helped me improve my game,” Tungjaroenkul said. “He caught me with the underhook and I didn’t allow that to happen the rest of the season.”
 
Tungjaroenkul donned his signature and grabbed a stuffed panda his sister gave him as a Christmas present after his final match. He then celebrated with teammates and young Spartan fans who were happy to greet him.
 
“I think this one was a little bigger because this was my last hurrah,” Tungjaroenkul said. “It was my final sendoff and with a lot of seniors making it to state with me, and that meant a lot.”
 

SECOND TIME’S A CHARM FOR NEWTON’S STOKES, KAUFMAN
 
Championship Saturday was a tough day a year ago for Newton senior A.B. Stokes and sophomore Lucas Kaufman.
 
The two lower-weight Railers fell two points short of individual state titles, with Stokes losing 11-9 in an action-packed 120-pound final to Great Bend’s Kaden Spragis, and Kaufman dropping a 6-4 decision to Valley Center’s Jett Schwartz at 106.
 
Neither top-ranked wrestler left any what-ifs in their return to the finals on Saturday.
 
Stokes completed his career with a dominant performance, pinning Great Bend junior Kaiden Hoffman in 45 seconds to win the 126-pound title. Kaufman held the upper hand throughout in an 11-0 major decision over Salina Central sophomore Jase Adam to win at 113.

 
Last year’s title-match loss had added sting for Stokes, who defeated Spragis in two prior meetings, including a week earlier in the regional finals.
 
“I told myself I would not let that happen again,” said Stokes, a three-time state medalist for Newton who also qualified for the Oklahoma state tournament his sophomore year at Tulsa’s Lincoln Christian. “I chose to just push myself harder and harder every day in practice so I could be my best when it came down to it.”
 
Kaufman was outdueled by Schwartz in all four of their meetings during his 33-10 freshman season. But against Adam, he scored a takedown 14 seconds into the match and never let the Mustang go on the offensive.
 
“When I was wrestling him, it felt like spectators might be a little bit bored, but I wasn’t going to let anything happen that would maybe jeopardize the match,” said Kaufman, who capped a 36-6 season. “So I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll stay in control and win the match.’”
 
Stokes finished his career with 115 career victories, completing his second stint at Newton after his father, also named A.B., was hired as Bethel College’s football coach in November 2021. He said his return to the Railer program, where he worked out daily with four-time champion Nick Treaster and Kaufman, took his wrestling to a higher level.
 
“It was a big change, especially at meets because I like to watch those guys compete in front of me,” Stokes said. “It sparks me up before I’m up to wrestle. And Logan Treaster worked with me a lot and is an awesome coach. He really gave me the attention I needed to make improvement.”
 
Kaufman said he benefited from the veteran leadership of Stokes and Treaster. The Railers’ primary strength came in their lower weights, where all five from 106-pounder Taylor Rickard to Bailey Steinmetz at 132 earned state medals.
 
“They’re great mentors to me,” Kaufman said of Stokes and Treaster. “They help me cut weight, they help me with technique, they help me work harder, they push me in the room.
 
“Anything I can ask for, they’ve been like big brothers to me. They taught me how to be a great leader in the room and really how to handle yourself on and off the mat.”
 



 

 

 

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