Delta coaches Luis Meza, center, and Clayton Curtis congratulate 152-pound senior Hunter Brasfield after an upset win sent him into the 4A Region 4 semifinals.
Hotchkiss senior Joe Boyle controls Ruben Chagoya of Basalt to win a 3A Region 1 title. He is one of 7 Hotchkiss state qualifiers.
Hotchkiss and Paonia boys will square off this week on the basketball courts. Both are 6-4 in league play.
Delta senior Brooke Taylor scores two of her 12 points against Summit after grabbing an offensive rebound.
Paonia 195-pounder Tyler “TK” Kendall sets Rangely’s Drew Collins up for a pin.
Paonia freshman Bo Pipher sets TJ Richard of North Park up for a pin in Saturday’s regional semifinal round. He is one of 13 Paonia wrestlers headed to state!
Surrounded by coaches and his dad, Conner Beard signs Letter of Intent to play football for the University of Nebraska Kearney.
Hotchkiss' Jacobe Galley signed a Letter of Intent to play football and study engineering at Colorado Mesa University.
Hotchkiss senior Cody Bartlett signed his National Letter of Intent to run cross-country for Hawaii Pacific University.
This year's Delta Panther wrestling team will be, by class numbers, a relatively young team. Combined, there are 27 wrestlers competing on the mat in practices each day.
Four of those 27 are returning seniors; Shane Anderson, Hunter Brasfield, Kyle Collins and Lino Ortiz.
From the junior class, there are five athletes working out; Hayes McCracken, Ty Cordova, Tim Rogers, Cordell Stroud and Chris Prosser.
This year's largest contributions come from the sophomore and freshman classes with nine athletes each. The sophomore class listings include Jayden Chynoweth, Wyatt Church, Daryan Urquahart, David Brown, Henry Komives, Derek Horn, Daniel Brown, Alejandro Medina and Marcus Garcia.
The freshmen that are listed include Luke Anderson, Colton Cordova, Kavan Trujillo, Shaun Staats, Alex Duran, Kodie Komives, Kelby Brown, Stephen Davignon and Kory Mills.
Clayton Curtis returns as Delta's head coach and is in his sixth season at the helm and 10th overall in the program. With Curtis as assistants are Luiz Meza (seven years), Tyler Morfitt and Kyle Morfitt (three years each), Rudy Fantin (two years), Randy Fantin (three years) and Nathan Trujillo (first year).
A list of impact wrestlers for Delta this season featured five athletes. Shane Anderson topped the list at 132 with Brasfield second at 160. Stroud (170), Horn (145), and Brown (113) completes the list.
Delta has numerous athletes who have potential to advance to post-season action. When asked how his team would do in 2012-13, Curtis' reply was, "We have a young team that will battle this year. Our end-of-the-year goal is always to be in the top ten at state."
This year's Delta High School varsity roster in wrestling will include Chynoweth (106), Brown (113), McCracken (120), Ty Cordova (126), Anderson (132), Kodie Komives (138), Horn (145), Brasfield (160), Stroud (170), Collins (182), Medina (195), Ortiz (220) and Garcia (HWT).
Delta defeated Montrose last Thursday for the first time in many years and then competed in the Maverick Duals at CMU over the weekend where they were 2-3.