There was a part of Emerson Tjaden who was looking forward to returning the Bobcat Classic at Basehor-Linwood this season.
 
It was the only tournament outside of the Class 5A state tournament a year ago in which the De Soto standout failed to reach the finals as he finished fourth, falling to a pair of out-of-state wrestlers in close matches in his 144-pound bracket.
 
And as much as Wildcat coach Javier Vieyra would have liked to have given Tjaden his shot at redemption, another opportunity for his team was simply too good to pass up. An opening came up at the Newton Tournament of Champions and given its tradition and format, Vieyra jumped at the chance to take his team south.
 
“Last year, we went to the Bobcat which is a great tournament itself,” he said. “But we rarely get to make it outside of the Kansas City area so when the opportunity presented itself to come to Wichita and see schools that we normally don’t get to, I immediately jumped on it. Especially with State being in Park City, we get a ‘test run’ on how to diet, hotel life, recovery times, etc.”
 
The decision definitely was one Tjaden was excited about.
 
“I always like to compete against the best because it helps get me better,” he said. “I’d heard it was a good tournament so I was excited to go there and see that competition. I thought it would be a great test.”
 
Tjaden, who went into the tournament ranked No. 1 at 150 pounds in Class 5A, was certainly up to the test. The Wildcat sophomore went 4-0 at the tournament and was impressive in doing so. After a bye in the opening round, he pinned Arkansas City’s Talen Daily in the second rond before taking a 17-2 technical fall win over Emporia’s Dustin Dobson in the quarterfinals.
 
The semifinals proved to be his toughest match and he pulled out a 4-2 win over Blue Valley Southwest’s Kaden Markley (No. 4 in 5A). In the finals, he squared off Garden City’s Saben Herrera, who had made a somewhat surprising run to the finals.
 
Herrera knocked off the tourney’s No. 2 seed, Manhattan’s Logan Lagerman, with a dominant 21-3 technical fall win in the quarterfinals and then followed it up with a 54-second pin of Salina Central’s Jase Adam, No. 2 in 5A, in the semifinals. But Tjaden ended Herrera’s Cinderella run with a second-period pin in the finals to improve to 24-1 on the season.
 
“I hadn’t ever seen him wrestle,” Tjaden said. “I was just told he had good tilts and I had to be aware of that. But otherwise, I wasn’t going to change anything and I was going to wrestle how I wrestle.
 
“I just like to get a bit of an understanding of what (my opponent) can do. But I have enough confidence in what I do to just go and do it.”
 
Tjaden hit high school with that same confidence a year ago and enjoyed a huge freshman year, going 47-5 overall. His bid to capture a state championship ended in the state semifinals with a 4-1 loss to Hays’ Harley Zimmerman, who finished 42-0 after winning the state title.
 
That loss stuck with Tjaden all throughout the offseason, both as a learning tool and motivation.
 
“I really think it opened up to me being able to put more moves together and be more smooth if I’m going to beat the top-level guys,” he said. “It kind of set a fire under my butt to get better.”
 
Vieyra certainly noticed a different Tjaden as he returned for his sophomore season this year.
 
“I feel like the biggest step he has taken from freshman to sophomore year is the mental approach he takes to practices and tournaments,” Vieyra said. “He doesn’t focus on winning, but is always thinking of yow he can improve in positions and learning as much as he can. Most days I have to try and convince him to take time off. He just really loves to wrestle and has fun with it.”
 
This year has certainly been a blast for Tjaden.
 
Coming off a summer where he won USAWKS state titles in freestyle and Greco, Tjaden has been nearly unstoppable. He suffered his lone loss to Landen McDowell of Park Hill South (Mo.) in the semifinals of the Lee’s Summit North Invitational to start the season, taking third, but then followed that with titles at the Johnson County Classic and Louisburg Invitational, beating Markley in the finals at Johnson County by the same 4-2 score he secured in the Newton semis.
 
“He’s just really tough to score against,” Tjaden said.
 
Outside of his two close decisions over Markley and his loss to McDowell, Tjaden has been dominant in his victories. He’s racked up 12 pins, but perhaps even more impressively, he’s recorded eight technical fall wins.
 
“I just keep trying to get better and whatever happens, happens,” he said. “I think the season’s going good and I just have to finish off the last couple weeks to be where I want to be.”
 
If there was any disappointment in winning the title at Newton it was not getting a shot at facing what could have been his toughest opponent of the season. Tjaden is ranked No. 2 in the All-Class rankings behind Rose Hill’s Damon Ingram. The Rockets were at the Newton tournament as a team, but Ingram – last year’s Class 4A champion at 138 -- didn’t wrestle.
 
“I wanted that match bad,” Tjaden said. “That would have been the only time I’d gotten to see him, so that kind of sucked. It always feels good to win, but I just looked at it like another tournament for me to get better to accomplish what I want to accomplish.”
 

 
WASHBURN RURAL’S BROXTERMAN NABS NEWTON HONOR
 
Winning a title at the Newton Tournament of Champions is nothing new for Washburn Rural’s Easton Broxterman. He accomplished the feat last year as a junior.
 
And beating Rose Hill’s Jonny Leck, a returning Class 4A state champion, also isn’t an unfamiliar feeling for Broxterman. He pinned the Rocket standout early in the second period of last year’s 132-pound finals to secure his first Newton title.
 
But after taking a commanding 11-0 win over Leck in the 144-pound finals of this year’s Newton tournament, Broxterman came away with something new from the tournament. He was named the tournament’s Outstanding Wrestler after handing Leck his first loss of the season.
 
Broxterman, who pinned his first three opponents in a combined 2:49, including a 21-second pin of Valley Center’s Cooper Boone, who was ranked No. 5 at 150 pounds before dropping to 144 for the tourney.
 

 
While Broxterman was improving to 22-2 on the season, his only losses coming to a pair of out-of-state opponents, fellow Centennial League standout Caeleb Hutchinson was also getting his second Newton title.
 
After winning a loaded 106-pound bracket as a freshman in 2023, Hutchinson settled for a third-place finish last year after getting knocked off 5-4 by Newton’s Lucas Kaufman in the 120-pound semifinals.
 
Moving up to 132 this season, Hutchinson returned to the top of the podium, going 5-0. He took a big 8-0 win over Class 5A No. 1 Luke Potter of Andover in the semifinals before pulling out a 3-0 win over Maize’s Vincent Rosas (No. 2 in 6A) in the finals.
 
Hutchinson is now 31-1 with his lone loss coming to Carter Pearson of Southeast Polk (Neb.) in the finals of the Gardner-Edgerton Invitational.
 

 
OTHER BOYS WRESTLING STANDOUTS

• Basehor-Linwood’s Trevor Christenson was named the Outstanding Wrestler at the Bobcat Classic after capturing the title at 120 pounds, becoming the first-ever Bobcat to get that honor at their home tournament. Christenson went 4-0 on the day with three pints and then took an 8-3 win over Erik Egstad of Park Hill (Mo.) in the finals with Egstad a Fargo All-American last summer.
• Lansing’s Noah Mathis won the 215 title at Basehor, taking a 4-1 win over Mason Koehler of Glenwood (Iowa) in the finals to move to 23-0 on the season. Older brother Elijah Mathis lost his first match of the season, dropping an 8-2 decision to Jackson Rotterman of St. Pius X (Mo.) in the 190 finals.
• Though he didn’t win a title at the Newton Tournament of Champions, Southeast of Saline freshman Roman Tuttle made an impressive statement. Unranked and unseeded going into the tournament, Tuttle knocked off three ranked wrestlers on his way to the finals, taking a technical fall win over Pratt’s Alex Chavez in the second round and pinning Lawrence’s Lou Elsten (No. 4 All-Class) and Valley Center’s Braxton Moody (No. 6 All-Class) in the quarterfinals and semifinals before losing in the finals to No. 1 Matthew Long of Garden City. Teammate Brody Chambers beat defending Class 3-2-1A 285 champion Corbin Puga of Norton on his way to a fourth-place finish, both losses to Andover Central’s Dawson Rodd.
• Jefferson West’s Karson Kahler and Osiris Unruh put together an impressive back-to-back showing with titles at both the Aaron Patton Memorial Invitational on Friday and St. Marys Invitational on Saturday. Kahler went a combined 7-0 for his titles at 132, while Unruh was a combined 8-0 for his 285 titles.
• Burlingame’s Scott Leandro won his second straight tournament, taking the 120-pound titles at the Topeka High and Emporia Invitationals. He beat state-ranked wrestlers at each tourney in the finals, including a 54-second pin of Council Grove’s Nate Seimears at Topeka, improving to 12-1 on the season. Teammate Eli Moon added his second tourney title of the season at Topeka High after previously winning at El Dorado. Moon is also 12-1 at 138 pounds.
• Council Grove/Northern Heights won the team title at the Topeka High meet, scoring 217 points to win by 69 over Shawnee Mission Northwest. The Braves got titles from Bradly Doornbos (126), Leo DeDonder (132), Logan Schlimme (157), Caden Honer (165) and Ace Monihen (215).
• West Franklin brothers Logan and Chase Courtois each captured titles at Wellsville and St. Marys as well, both staying undefeated on the season. Logan improved to 19-0 with his titles at 144 pounds while Chase moved to 17-0 with his titles at 113.
• Also winning titles at Wellsville were Osawatomie’s Dodge Browning (175), Onaga’s Dylan Slifer (157), Burlington’s Aden McManus (150) and Prairie View’s Levi Benedick (138).
• Hayden and Manhattan each had a pair of champions at the St. Marys Invitational with Jude Krentz winning at 175 and Caleb Menke taking the title at 157 for Hayden and Brayden Strutt (126) and Brock Henningson (190) winning for Manhattan. Other champions at St. Marys included Onaga’s Jesse Miller (106), Maur Hill’s Jaxson Vice (120) and Osage City’s Landon Petitjean (150).
• Beloit’s Brogan Monty defeated Phillipsburg’s Kaden Sisson in a battle of two of the top-three ranked 132-pounders in Class 3-2-1A in the finals at the Jayhusker Invitational in Marysville. Monty (No. 1) edged Sisson (No. 3) 2-0 for the title and was one of two champions for the Trojans with Brodie Boudreaux winning at 215.
• Also taking titles at the Jayhusker were Marysville’s Brock Crome (190), Clay Center’s Thayne Pfizenmaier (113) and Nemaha Central’s Harry Langill (106).
• Minneapolis had a trio of champions at the Halstead Invitational to finish runner-up to Lyons in the team race. Taking titles for the Lions were Kegan Wheeler (113) Brayton Peters (132) and Jasper Johns (138). NCAA rival Ellsworth had two champions at the meet, Micah Galvan at 175 and Keegan Urbanek at 190.

 

 
GIRLS WRESTLING STANDOUTS

• Burlington’s Haylei Potter picked up her 100th career win at the Aaron Patton Memorial Invitational at Wellsville in a runner-up finish at 135. Potter lost in the finals to Santa Fe Trail’s Morgan Pickering, who was one of three champions for the Chargers along with Sydnee Sleichter (115) and Sky Kelly (190). Burlington did get a champion in Paige Ferrara (170).
• Wellsville had four champions at its home tournament – Jazz Kirk (110), Kynlie Stevenson (120), Olive Dubois (125) and Morgan Mietchen (130).
• Emporia’s Alexa Castillo delivered arguably the biggest win over her career to take the 235-pound title at the Newton Tournament of Champions. In the finals, Castillo knocked off Class 4A No. 1 Ciara Rawson of McPherson with a second-period pin, avenging a previous loss to the Bullpup standout.
• Jefferson West’s Lucy Henderson recorded her first-ever tournament title, winning at 155 pounds at the Aaron Patton Memorial Invitational at Wellsville. Teammate Mya Vetsch won the 135-pound title the next day at the St. Marys Invitational.
• Manhattan got a pair of champions at Newton with Eva Lucios winning at 100 and Alayna Slifer taking the title at 135. Both pinned their finals foes in the first period.
• De Soto’s Gabby Chaney also got a title at Newton, winning at 190 pounds.
• Basehor-Linwood’s Lainie Galvan continued her impressive sophomore season with a title at 100 pounds at the Best of the West Invitational in Wichita. Galvan pinned four of her five opponents, including Liberal’s Kiersie Carlile (No. 4 in 6A) in the finals. Basehor took third as a team, also getting runner-up finishes from Izzy Renfro (190), Karla Barrios (115) and Miley Locke (105).
• Hiawatha’s Clarissa Moyer won the 115 title at St. Marys while Rossville’s Nora Mitchell (100) and Madelyn Wonnell (145), Maur Hill’s Emma Vice (125), Perry-Lecompton’s Skyy Hepner (130), Silver Lake’s MaKayla Connor (155) and Manhattan’s Erica Li (170) also were champs at the meet.
• West Franklin’s Mya Crabtree (140) and Osawatomie’s Summer Bradshaw (235) also were champions at Wellsville.
• Piper and Highland Park each came away with two champions at the Blue Valley West Invitational. Maia Dolinar (135) and Malia Martin (170) brought home titles for Piper while Kimberly Rodriguez (100) and Makayla Cadet (190) were champions for the Scots.
• Junction City’s Jaidyn Alvarado won the 100 title at the Hays Prairie Classic, pinning Plainville’s Kaeleigh Klein in the first period of the title match to move to 14-1 on the season. Teammate Bree Villanueva suffered her first loss of the season in the 115 finals, dropping a 7-0 decision to Norton freshman Kaison Miller.
• Abilene took the team title at the Clearwater Invitational, getting three champions. Twin sisters Josie and Jade Wilson swept the titles at 100 and 105 with Josie staying undefeated at 19-0. Kaylee Weibert added a title at 135