After becoming just the third wrestler in Colby history to capture three individual state wrestling championships Saturday at the Class 4A state meet in Salina, Ryder Dempewolf was somewhat matter-of-fact about what he had just accomplished.
 
“It’s just another title, I guess,” he dead-panned. “Just keep working. That’s what I got.”
 
On a day where two of his class 4A colleagues celebrated their fourth state championships – Paola’s Brock Johnson and Beloit’s Brogan Monty – Dempewolf’s three-peat was a bit overshadowed. But make no mistake, his performance not only this season but throughout his career, merits similar acclaim.
 
In winning his third straight state championship – the first two coming at 113 pounds and this year’s at 120 pounds -- Dempewolf posted a dominant 118-4 combined record during those title runs, including a 33-1 mark this season. He finished his career with a 156-10 record and four top-three showings, taking third at 106 pounds as a freshman.
 
And had it not been for a loaded bracket that freshman season, Dempewolf very well might have been celebrated as a four-time champion on Saturday. The two wrestlers he finished behind at the state meet that year were Johnson, who won the first of his four titles, and Rose Hill’s Johnny Leck, who wound up being a three-time state champion for the Rockets, denied his four-peat by Johnson.
 
Still, the magnitude of his career wasn’t lost on Dempewolf, even as he downplayed the significance of his third title.
 
“It’s been an amazing opportunity I got here,” said Dempewolf, who joined Dustin Reed (2011-13) and Steve Lampe (1965-67) as the lone three-time champions in Colby history.
 

 
His first championship elicited a much more emotional response. After getting an escape as time expired in regulation and then scoring a takedown in overtime in his 113-pound championship match against Paola’s Bryson Rockers to pull off a 7-5 win, Dempewolf punctuated the thrilling victory with a back flip.
 
Ever since, however, he’s been all business.
 
Last year, Dempewolf needed no late-match heroics in the finals, blanking Rose Hill’s Trenton Richwine 8-0 after surviving a tough battle with Andale’s Luke Seiler in the semifinals, a 9-7 win. That capped a 44-1 season for the Eagle.
 
This year, more of the same. Dempewolf suffered his only loss to Easton Weidner of Doniphan-Turnbull (Neb.), a freshman who finished third at the Nebraska Class C state tournament, but dominated his Kansas competition.
 

 
There were no such close calls at state this time around as Dempewolf pinned his first two opponents and then won by a 16-1 technical fall over Paola’s Sawyer Blue in the semifinals. Facing another Rose Hill opponent in the title match, No. 2 James Bilby, Dempewolf built a 4-0 lead before Bilby got a reversal to cut the deficit in half early in the third.
 
It was all Dempewolf from there. He escaped and got a quick takedown and then after letting Bilby up, put the finishing touches on the match with a takedown with 16 seconds left for the 11-3 major decision.
 
“We’re good friends and I knew he was tough,” Dempewolf said of Bilby. “I just went at it like any other match I would have and just go for it.”
 
Dempewolf let out a scream after the victory, but it was as much another emotion as it was jubilation.
 
“It was a big relief,” he said. “There’s a lot of pressure when everyone expects you to win. I had probably 15 people ask me, ‘Are you going to win tomorrow?’ I just told them, ‘I don’t know. It hasn’t happened yet.’”
 
Dempewolf will continue his wrestling career at Central Missouri.
 

 
JEFFERSON WEST’S UNRUH, ABILENE’S RANDOLPH WORK OVERTIME FOR FIRST STATE TITLES
 
It was about as close to a complete deja-vu moment for Osiris Unruh.
 
A year ago, the Jefferson West heavyweight squared off with Augusta’s Wily Morales in a battle of unbeatens for the Class 4A 285-pound title and the clash was everything one would expect from such a matchup.
 
Regulation couldn’t decide it as they traded escapes. Neither could a scoreless overtime. Or the first 30-second double overtime, in which Morales kept Unruh from escaping. In the second 30-second double-OT period, Unruh nearly worked back points, but after a reset, Morales got a reversal and took a 3-2 win to end Unruh’s bid for an undefeated season.
 
“I used that loss as fuel all year long,” Unruh said. “Practicing hard, working hard and it paid off in the end.”
 
Finding his way back to the championship match this year, Unruh was able to flip a script that darn near played out in the same fashion.
 
Taking on No. 2 Remington Merlau of Rose Hill, the two battled through three periods to a 1-1 tie. Once again, the overtime period went scoreless, sending things to the double-overtime periods.
 

 
Unruh was able to keep Merlau under wraps for the bulk of the first 30-second period, but the Rocket sophomore got an escape with 9 seconds left to go up 2-1. With positions reversed in the second double-OT period, Merlau was able to keep Unruh from getting free for the bulk of the period.
 
But with his title hopes slipping away, Unruh found a burst to free himself and got a tying escape with 2 seconds left, forcing the ultimate tiebreaker.
 
“I was trying to get out and he’s got that cross-body lock,” Unruh said. “I don’t know where I found the drive, but I found the drive to get out and score that one. It flashed for a second (that I would lose), and that fueled that drive and that separation and I got out.”
 
Having scored first in the match, Unruh could choose position for the sudden-death period and despite his troubles escaping in the previous OT, he chose bottom. This time, he had no trouble and scored the winning escape 9 seconds in for the 3-2 win.
 
“I lost my dad five years ago and this one is for him,” Unruh said. “It’s a dream come true really.”
 
Unruh finished the season 33-1 with his lone loss coming to two-time Class 3-1A state champion Brody Chambers of Southeast of Saline.
 

 
While Murphy Randolph’s 150-pound title match didn’t quite make it to the ultimate tiebreaker round, it was no less of a thrilling end for the Abilene junior.
 
Returning to the title match for the first time since finishing runner-up to Paola four-time champion Brock Johnson as a freshman in 2024, Randolph was having all kind of trouble getting anything going against Andale’s Tristen Cox in their title match. In fact, the Cowboys spent most of the match playing catch-up after Cox got a first-period takedown for a quick 3-0 lead.
 
Randolph never managed a takedown or reversal in the first three periods with Cox, but used escapes in the first and second periods to pull within one and then tied the match when Cox was hit with his second stalling penalty with just under a minute left in the third.
 
After a scoreless overtime, Randolph started the first of the two double-OT periods on bottom and that’s when he finally made his move. Cox got too high on his body in the top position and Randolph was able to not only reverse the Indian, but reversed him right to his back for a six-point move.
 
“I just had to wrestle through the position and keep trying to score points,” Randolph said. “Getting back points is really good. I felt very confident I was going to walk away with it after that.”
 
The cushion more than held up as Cox only managed an escape in the second double-OT period, giving Randolph the 9-4 victory.
 
It was a far cry from their earlier meeting this year when Randolph pinned Cox at the Cowboys’ home tournament.
 
“The first time I kind of caught him off guard a bit and I don’t think he was ready for me,” Randolph said. “This time, he was definitely ready for me and it was a lot better match.”
 

 
The title was the first for Randolph, who had taken an undefeated record into the 126-pound finals his freshman year before losing to Johnson. Last year, Randolph moved up to 138 and before he could get a shot at revenge against Johnson, he fell 7-3 in the semifinals to Winfield’s Talon Suttles and eventually finished fifth after getting pinned by Goodland’s Trayven Conger in the consolation semifinals.
 
This year, Randolph’s only loss came to an out-of-state opponent, Christian Brothers’ Colin Rutlin from Missouri at the Gardner Edgerton Invitational. He finished the season 42-1.
 
“It’s been a long journey,” Randolph said of finally getting a state title. “You just have to keep the right mindset and keep working. I’ve worked really hard for this.”
 

 
FAMILY AFFAIR CONTINUES AS ANDALE COUSINS ECK, MARTIN SHARE TITLE EXPERIENCE
 
A year ago, Ethan Eck was able to celebrate state titles with cousins Judd Eck and Isaiah Wilson.
 
This year, it was more of the same, albeit a little bit different.
 
Ethan Eck won his second straight state championship, this time around dominating his 175-pound title match with Abilene’s Cael Casteel. But instead of sharing the experience with Wilson, now graduated, and Judd, who fell just short of his own repeat title, it was a different cousin joining the ever-growing list of Andale state champions with ties to the same family.
 
Luke Martin, a cousin to Ethan, added his name to the club, capturing the 113-pound state title with a 16-8 win over Tonganoxie’s Brodie Starcher.
 
“It was unreal,” Martin said. “It’s been my dream ever since I was a little kid. I’ve seen all those guys do it over the years and it was just my turn.”
 

 
Martin came close to joining the club a year ago, reaching the 106-pound state championship match as a freshman despite having 11 losses on the season. But after knocking off regional champion Colton Minick of Independence in a wild 17-10 quarterfinal and then upsetting Abilene’s Keyen Taplin in a 4-0 semifinal victory, he couldn’t complete the run to the title, falling to Rose Hill’s two-time champion Samson Whitted 4-1 in the finals.
 
“I was really motivated ever since coming up short last year,” Martin said. “Honestly, after wrestling (Whitted) earlier in the season at our dual, it was a close match and I thought I could beat him. That’s been my whole goal this year, working hard to get it done.”
 
Martin cruised into the finals with a pin and two technical fall wins, backing up the No. 1 ranking he’d held for all but two weeks of the season when it looked like he might move up to 120. His championship match was headed that direction as well as it took Martin only 13 seconds to take Starcher down.
 
He nearly pinned Starcher in the opening period but the Chieftain fought it off. But after Martin got another takedown in the second period, he led 10-0 and was in control. Up 11-0 after being let up to start the third, Martin’s title dreams nearly came crashing down.
 
Starcher caught the Indian sophomore out of position and got not only a takedown but back points to make it an 11-5 match.
 
“I wasn’t that concerned,” Martin said. “I knew I wouldn’t let myself get pinned.”
 

 
Things got a little more interesting after Martin escaped when Starcher got another quick takedown. But he couldn’t work back points this time and Martin punctuated a 16-8 win with a late takedown to cap a 39-9 season with his first state title.
 
“My coaches told me to come out hot, wrestle my match and don’t be scared,” Martin said. “I think I improved a lot from last year to this year. I had a really nice group of seniors that helped me work hard and pushed me.”
 
That group of seniors included Ethan Eck, who got his first state title last year at 165 pounds when he took an 11-3 major decision over Brody Gomez. Moving up to 175 this year, Eck was even more dominant than a year ago when he finished 43-2.
 
This year, he posted a 47-1 mark, his only loss coming to Rose Hill’s Thunder Page, who captured his second straight state title at 157 pounds just two matches ahead of Eck’s repeat title. That came at a dual between the two 4A powers with the powerhouse wrestlers opting to meet in the middle in an epic showdown that Page won 3-2.
 
“It was a great match,” Eck said. “You’re always going to have those setbacks but it just drives you to get better so you don’t lose again.”
 
Beyond that, Eck was simply dominating, winning 32 of his matches via pin and having only two other matches decided by less than a major decision. One of those pin wins came against Abilene’s Casteel in the finals of the Cowboys’ home tournament.
 
With Andale needing every possible bonus point it could get in a tight team race with Rose Hill, Tonganoxie, Abilene and Paola, Eck did his part. He not only pinned all four of his opponents at state, but did so in the first period, including needing just 1:19 to pin Casteel in the finals.
 
“That was the plan,” Eck said. “Coach said we were going to need team points so I had to go out there and get the guys going. I knew I could do it.”
 

 
Eck became Andale’s first multi-time state champion since cousin Owen Eck won four straight from 2021-24. He’s just the seventh multi-time champion for the Indians overall, his back-to-back titles coming after injury-plagued freshman and sophomore seasons.
 
“It feels amazing,” he said. “I wasn’t figuring I’d be a two-timer, but ended up being one.”
 
Judd Eck had a chance to join Ethan as a back-to-back champion this year after taking the 120-pound title last year. But moving up to 132 this year, his weight class was arguably the toughest at the state meet.
 
After narrowly getting past Girard’s Storm Rieck in the semifinals with an 8-7 decision, Eck squared off against Paola’s Bryson Rockers in a battle of returning state champions with Rockers taking the 126 crown a year ago.
 
Eck fell into a big hole early as Rockers got takedowns in the first and second periods to bolt to a 7-0 lead. He slowly got back into the match with reversals in the second and third period and then was right there with a chance after getting a takedown with 31 seconds left to make it a 9-7 match.
 
But he couldn’t complete the comeback and fell 10-7 to fall just shy of a second straight title.
 
Another cousin, Tristen Cox, had an even tougher defeat at 150 pounds after reaching the title match for the first time in his career. In position to upset No. 1 Murphy Randolph of Abilene, he gave up a stalling penalty point late in the third period that tied the match and then got caught on his back in double overtime to fall 9-4.
 
Going 2-2 in the finals, Andale settled for a third-place finish in the team standings with 134 points, 18 behind state champion Tonganoxie and just 3.5 behind runner-up Rose Hill. Andale and Rose Hill had been tied for the lead after the first day of the state meet with 110 points.
 
“It definitely was a race to the end,” Ethan Eck said. “We had some people that didn’t quite do what we thought they might do. But that’s going to happen here and there. We tried our best.”
 
 

BEST IN SHOW: SMOKY VALLEY’S GARDNER, PAOLA’S ROCKERS CAP CAREERS WITH BACK-TO-BACK CROWNS
 
It’s been said countless times.
 
Getting to the top is hard. Staying there is even tougher.
 
Parker Gardner will attest to that. As much as the Smoky Valley relished the first Class 4A 215-pound state championship he won a year ago, defending that title Saturday at Tony’s Pizza Events Center was even more satisfying.
 
“It was so different to me,” Gardner said. “Instead of being the challenger, I had to defend it. There was so much pressure. The hours leading up to my match, I had a pit in my stomach I could not get rid of.
 
“It feels like the pressure got doubled. Instead of having nothing to lose, I had everything to lose.”
 
On the surface it looked like Gardner played things a little more closer to the vest in this year’s 2-1 title match victory over Columbus’ Kash Smith than he did a year ago when he took a 13-5 major decision over Louisburg’s Ashton Moore, not trying to put himself in position to get beat. But in reality, the nature of that match – and many matches he had this season – was anything how he prefers his matches to go.
 
A guy who likes to force the issue with his combination of quickness and strength, he found most of his opponents unwilling to really engage.
 
“It always felt like I had to keep my cool because a lot of my opponents this year decided it was a great accomplishment not to get pinned by me,” he said. “So they would get very defensive. I had to control my anger because people would just run away the entire match.”
 

Smith didn’t necessarily stay away from Gardner, but he also never really let Gardner get into him. All the points in the match came in the second period with Gardner reversing Smith and Smith getting an escape.
 
Gardner thought he had secured back points in the third period, but they weren’t awarded and he settled for the 2-1 win.
 
“I learned throughout the season I have to keep pressing forward even though it feels like an uphill battle,” he said. “If I start to slow down, it gives the opponent a chance to finally shoot.”
 
Gardner finished the season 39-1 and became just the second two-time state champion in Smoky Valley history, joining Austin Cook, who won back-to-back titles in 2014-15. Gardner very well could have been a three-time state champion, sitting 31-1 going into regionals his sophomore season before a displace sternum injury he had battled throughout the season became too much to overcome and he lost out in the consolation semifinals.
 
The journey back would make for quite a movie, which is exactly the future Gardner has planned.
 
“I found out I wanted to go into film,” Gardner said. “I like anything creative and video and film is something that intrigues me the most. An idea that you can capture an image and play thousands of them in an hour is so much cooler than a still image.”
 

 
Whether or not Bryson Rockers’ journey to becoming a two-time state champion as well is movie-worthy is a judgment call. But it’s a tale that is no less remarkable.
 
Brought into the sport by best friend Brock Johnson, who became a four-time state champion on Saturday, Rockers’ success was perhaps a bit overshadowed. But he finishes his high school career at Paola with a resume that few others besides Johnson can top in the program.
 
A four-time state finalist, Rockers got his first state title a year ago when he won the title at 126 pounds, beating Rose Hill’s Sebastian Bentley 8-0 in the championship match. That ended a two-year streak of heartbreak as Rockers lost in the 113-pound title match as a freshman in 2023, pinned by rival Brock Sutton of Ottawa, and then lost in overtime to Colby’s Ryder Dempewolf in the 2024 113 finals, a last-second escape by Dempewolf forcing the overtime period.
 
As satisfying as that first crown was, this year’s held even more weight. The 132-pound bracket was arguably the most top-heavy one at this year’s 4A state meet, featuring two returning state champions in Rockers and Andale’s Judd Eck, the 120 champion in 2025, as well as two-time state runner-up Bentley. Throw in Girard’s Storm Rieck and the semifinals packed as much or more punch than any other in 4A.
 
“Obviously, it was a really big challenge and I like the challenge,” Rockers said. “Going into it, I knew I had put in enough work and had the abilities to win those matches. It was just a matter of going out there and showing what I was made of.”
 
Rockers showed out all right. Instead of meeting Bentley for a rematch in the finals, they met in the semifinals with Rockers again handling his Rocket rival to the tune of a 12-4 major decision. 
 

 
That set up a showdown with Eck, who narrowly got past Rieck 8-7 in his semifinal match.
 
Rockers took it right to his fellow returning champion in the title match, getting takedowns in the first and second periods to jump out to a 7-0 lead. But Eck worked his way back into the match with reversals in the second and third period and then applied some serious heat when he got a takedown with 31 seconds left to make it a 9-7 match.
 
But Rockers denied the comeback, getting a late escape and fighting off Eck in the final seconds for a 10-7 victory.
 
“I know if I get out there and get to my offense, I can win just about any match and beat just about anybody,” Rockers said. “It’s a big thing to me that the first score will dictate the match. Now, that doesn’t always hold true. But to me, getting that first score tells me I can do it again. I did it once, I can do it again and it helps me be better mentally in those matches.
 
“It was a very tough bracket with a bunch of hammers in it. Being on top of that, it makes me feel good and trustworthy in what I’m doing on the mat, getting the job done a second time.”
 
Rockers finished with a 32-3 record this season.
 

 
WHY NOT ME? FRONTENAC’S WILDERMAN COMPLETES IMPROBABLE RUN TO FIRST TITLE
 
Even with the most wins of any wrestler in the 126-pound bracket going into the state tournament, Chance Wilderman’s road to a title seemed improbable.
 
Despite his 40-7 mark entering the state meet, he sat just No. 5 in the KWCA’s final rankings. And at every step on the path to the title, a big challenge awaited, starting with his opening match against returning state placer Harry Langill of Nemaha Central.

But one by one, the Frontenac sophomore picked them off, pinning Langill in the opening round and then upsetting No. 2 Tucker Saferite of Rose Hill with a 10-4 quarterfinal win. Next came an 8-7 thriller of a win over No. 4 Casen McAlister of Tonganoxie in the semifinals.
 
With “nothing to lose” in the finals against No. 1 Brayden Luinstra of Augusta, Wilderman simply refused to lose. 
 
After getting the winning takedown with 44 seconds left in his semifinal match with McAlister, Wilderman used a takedown with 37 seconds left in the title match to upset Luinstra with an 8-6 victory.
 
“It’s been a hard path,” Wilderman said. “But it just makes it mean even more.”
 
During his semifinal win over McAlister, Wilderman hurt his right knee when McAlister landed on it. But he battled through it to pull out that win and then battled through the pain again in the finals.
 
“It hurt for sure,” Wilderman said. “But last match of the year, I just had to power through it.”
 

 
He showed no ill effects of the knee injury early in the title match as he got the first takedown. But Luinstra answered with a takedown in the second period before both wrestlers traded reversals for a 5-5 match into the third. Luinstra escaped just 22 seconds into the final period, but Wilderman found his late heroics to snatch away the win.
 
He became Frontenac’s second-ever boys’ state champion, joining Riley McDaniel, who won his title in 2019.
 
“It’s awesome,” he said. “Hopefully I can be a three-timer and get the job done two more times.”
 

 
WAMEGO’S COSTA EXCEEDS OWN EXPECTATIONS WITH STATE TITLE AS FRESHMAN
 
Prior to the season, Isaac Costa would have been happy just making the Class 4A 106-pound podium.
 
“It was never really my goal to win it, just to place,” the Wamego freshman said. “I didn’t think I could come close to (a state title).”
 
That all changed a month before the state tournament. Taking on then-No. 1 Keyen Taplin of Abilene in their North Central Kansas League dual, Costa pulled off a shocker and upset Taplin with a 4-2 victory.
 
At that point, expectations changed.
 
“I realized I could definitely win it,” Costa said. “It was a close match, but it gave me a lot of confidence and compete with these kids who are really good. I was just ready to do whatever it takes.”
 
Costa jumped from No. 6 to No. 1 in the rankings and stayed there for the remainder of the season. At state, he cruised through his first three matches with two first-period pins and a 16-0 technical fall semifinal win over Andale’s Levi Schmidt.
 
In the finals, Costa got a rematch with Taplin, who had pinned his way to the finals. Expecting another tough battle with his Cowboy rival, that’s exactly what he got.
 
Costa scored the only points of the match on an escape in the second period and prevailed with a 1-0 victory to capture the state title as a freshman. Tasked with having to ride Taplin for the entire third period, Costa was able to do that without getting dinged for stalling once.
 
“I was just trying to play it safe,” Costa said. “I was just trying to get my escape because I knew I could hold him down. He’s really good at bottom and got a reversal on me the first time. But I was just giving it everything I had and making sure I could hold him down.”
 
Costa, who finished the season with a 31-7 record, was one of two Wamego freshmen to start their careers with state titles. The other came from Leolyn Karnowski, who dominated her way to the girls’ 155-pound title.
 
“It’s pretty awesome,” he said. “We’re pretty close and good friends, so that was pretty cool.”
 
While a state title may not have been on his mind at the start of this season, Costa can now start thinking, at least a little bit, about becoming a four-time state champion.
 
“I’ve definitely thought of it now,” he said. “I’d always thought of being a two-time or maybe three-time champ, but never a four-time. But now I’ve got the opportunity to do that.”
 

 
COLUMBUS’ O’BANION GETS ELUSIVE STATE TITLE AT 190
 
A year ago, Mason O’Banion simply ran into a buzzsaw in his 175-pound title match, dropping a 13-2 major decision to Pratt’s Taye Wilson, who finished his career on a 94-match winning streak.
 
There was no such powerhouse standing in between the Columbus standout and a state championship this season. In fact, it was O’Banion that was the buzzsaw for the 190-pound bracket. 
 
Taking a 40-2 mark into the state tournament, O’Banion left no doubt, winning all four of his matches by no worse than a major decision. That included a 8-1 win over Hayden’s Jude Krentz in the finals.
 
O’Banion had beaten Krentz in the semifinals a year ago, dominating the Wildcat with a 19-3 technical fall win. While he couldn’t polish off Krentz in such fashion in their finals rematch this year, he controlled the title match from start to finish to end with a 44-2 record.