It was fair to wonder if Hoxie’s firm grip on Class 3-1A wrestling might finally loosen this season.

After all, the Indians graduated a prolific senior class last year that included four individual state champions and returned only one wrestler with state title match experience — senior Ian Giancola.

“A lot of people doubted us at the beginning of the year,” Giancola said. “Shoot, we were ranked third in the preseason. 

“They should have never done that because that just fueled the fire and made us work even harder to extend the streak.”

Loaded with underclassmen, the Indians stayed on the throne with their sixth consecutive team championship and 16th overall title. Hoxie wrapped up the 3-1A state tournament on Saturday at Gross Memorial Coliseum with 196.5 points, finishing 97.5 points ahead of Caney Valley and Atchison County, which tied for second place. 

Giancola closed his decorated career with a 36-0 season and secured his third state championship, earning a 4-3 decision in the 132 final over returning champion Derek Clydesdale from Norton. 

The other major highlight for the Indians belonged to Hoxie sophomore Bradyn Wilson, who outlasted Norton’s two-time reigning champion, Kaleb Keiswetter, 8-7 in the 113 final. 

While the Indians may not have had as much starpower as previous seasons, their depth was never stronger. Ten of Hoxie’s 11 state qualifiers made the medal podium. 

“The guys had an awesome performance,” second-year Hoxie head coach Ryan Etherton said. “They've been working really hard all year, and they're just a great group of kids that really like to push themselves. It's fun to see them get some of the results they'd like. I'm really proud of them. 

“They're really a young group and they've come a long way from the start of the season, especially from last year. They had a lot to prove and they knew that.”

Giancola, who won titles at 113 and 120 during his first two seasons, saw his bid for a 3-peat come up short last year. He took a 13-3 loss in the 120 title match to Southeast of Saline’s Roman Tuttle, who won the 120 title this year for his second championship.

On his quest for championship redemption, Giancola defeated Norton’s Clydesdale four times this season. Clydesdale was the 126-pound champion last year as a junior. 

“Derek is an awesome opponent,”  Giancola said. “I've been thankful for the battles that he's given me because he's pushed me to be a better wrestler. Knowing that he was a reigning state champ and I wasn’t, it really fueled me even more.”
 

After getting a pin and two major decisions in the first three matchups, Giancola found himself in a tight battle with Clydesdale for the championship. 
Giancola struck first with a takedown in the first period and went up 4-0 in the second period with an escape before Clydesdale notched a takedown to get within a point. 

On the edge of the mat in the closing seconds, Clydesdale was working to get his hips turned for a reversal but Giancola was unrelenting, hanging on to take the
decision by a point. 

“I knew I was in good position,” Giancola said. “I knew I was on the mat, knew he was still in bounds and I decided to hang on. For 20 more seconds, there was nothing he could do to get away from me in that 20 seconds. I knew I was gonna hang on.”

“[Giancola] was real gritty,” said Etherton, who took over the program last season after Mike Porsch stepped down after guiding the Indians to four straight team titles.

“I've watched him a lot in practice and I was pretty confident he was going to be able to hang in there. It was a scary situation, but he's a smart wrestler. He knows how to hang into positions and he knew what he needed to do to get it done.”

Giancola’s lone loss in his final two seasons came in last year’s title match against Tuttle. A University of Nebraska-Kearney signee, Giancola finished his high school career 142-5. 

“I've had that (second-place) medal hung above my doorframe for 365 days, and I can replace it with the first-place one,” Giancola said. “That feels awesome.”

Giancola was one of just two seniors for Hoxie this year and the only one who qualified for state. 

“Every single day in practice, he's pushing us all the time – don’t quit, don’t give, just keep going,” Wilson said of Giancola. 

“He's just been grinding all year,” Etherton said of his senior leader. “Ian's a really good kid. He just reset his mind and he knew he had to come out and perform, and he did. I'm really proud of him and being able to bounce back from (last year's loss) because it's not always an easy thing to do when you lose your goal.” 

Wilson, a sophomore, navigated his way through one of the toughest divisions in 3-1A to become a first-time state champ. 

In the 113 semifinals, he handed No. 1 ranked Tanner Rhoton his first loss of the season, earning a 9-5 decision over the Riley County junior to set up his fourth meeting of the season with Keiswetter.

Wilson won the first matchup of the season against Keiswetter in Goodland but the back-to-back state champ handed Wilson major-decision losses at the league and regional meets. 

In the championship match, Keiswetter held a 5-3 lead when the match was briefly stopped with 43 seconds left so Keiswetter could take injury time after getting his shoulder twisted up in a scramble with Wilson. 

The bout was decided in the last 30 seconds after a headlock from Wilson gave him the lead and started a mad scramble. Wilson went up 8-5 thanks to the reversal and three nearfall points, but Keiswetter quickly countered with a reversal to get within a point.

Wilson (30-7) then held off Keiswetter (43-4) from the bottom in the last 20 seconds to take the 8-7 decision. 

“I saw a headlock come up and I hit that and then we were just scrambling all over the place,” Wilson said. “At first I didn't know I was ahead or anything. I looked over at my coach and he said to stay, so that's how I figured out.

“It's hard to describe the feeling of it. Just a lot of things are going through my mind.”
 

Etherton lauded Wilson’s poise in the closing seconds. 

“Bradyn wrestled awesome,” Etherton said. “He kept himself in the match and gave himself an opportunity to win and it really worked out well.

“He just never stopped pressing. We wrestled [Keiswetter] a lot this year. We've had a lot of opportunities to get close and scrambles. A lot of times we didn't come out on top there, but it was always close. It was just, ‘Hey, keep giving yourself an opportunity.' ”

Hoxie had a pair of other sophomore finalists in Carter Giancola – Ian’s younger brother – and Travis Johnson. 

Carter Giancola (34-8) lost by a 7-6 decision the 165 final to Smith Center’s Parker Hutchinson, who avenged a regional final loss to Giancola. Johnson (30-15), also a sophomore, took an 11-1 major-decision loss in the 157 final against Phillipsburg senior Blake Buresh, who capped a 45-0 season with his second straight championship.

“Those two wrestled great,” Etherton said of Hoxie's runner-ups. “I'm super proud of them. They've come so far from last year and even just from where they were at the start of the year. They're building confidence and they both wrestled really well.”

“I couldn't be more proud of [Carter],” Ian Giancola said. “He and Travis Johnson both went from nobody knowing who they were, not in the rankings, to finishing second at the state tournament. You can't ask for a better two weeks out of those two.”

Hoxie’s other placers were freshman Porter Meyer (fourth at 106), freshman Simon Watkins (sixth at 126), sophomore Beau Koster (third at 138), junior Chase Meyer (fourth at 144), sophomore Noah Nickelson (fourth at 150) and junior Mathew Bretz (sixth at 215). 

“People better watch out for the next couple years,” Giancola said of Hoxie’s young squad. “They're going to be the real deal, I can tell you that.”

Titles from Max Bottorff (175) and Elijah Webb (190) helped propel Atchison County into a share of second place with Caney Valley, which had six medalists led by third-place finisher Boone White at heavyweight.