Wrestling expert Brian E. Preece examines what happened and recognizes the standouts:

Girls Wrestling: Last season Wasatch, known for being a boys wrestling juggernaut, didn’t have a single female wrestler. But now the Wasps put 25 girl wrestlers on the mat in the Wasatch Intermountain Duals, though in this case the name of the tournament was a misnomer because unlike the boys event, the girls used an individual bracketed format versus dual meets.

Out of the 11 teams that sent grapplers, Wasatch topped the field with 122 points, Canyon View was second with 106 and the defending 5A champions Maple Mountain was third with 68 points.

Regan Heywood (130 pounds) and Kate Bird (155) nailed down individual titles for the Wasps while Finely Larsen (115), Sarah Trunnell (120), Brinette Winegar (125), Natalie Escamilla (135), Hailey Longnecker (155), Bianca Cluff (165), and Hannah Baer (190) placed second.

Maple Mountain actually crowned three champions with Elle Jensen (120), Sage Eggleston (135) and Aurelia Ramos (170). Madi Sherman of Skyridge won the 125 pound weight class.

The surge in participants at Wasatch has much to do with the hiring of Hailey Corona.

Corona is also one of the most decorated female wrestlers in Utah history and competed against the boys in high school because girls wrestling wasn’t sanctioned by the Utah High School Activities Association (UHSAA) at that time. But in her short tenure as a coach, she has shown her wares leading the Golden Eagles to a second 5A title before moving on to Wasatch to build a program from scratch.

Corona has some great knowledge to lean on as her father Billy Cox led Maple Mountain to its first state title before moving on to Juab where he created a program that also had no wrestlers the previous year only to see that team win the silver trophy in the 1A-3A state tournament.

In other action, Cedar Valley was the top school at the Queen of the Ring tournament hosted by Hunter. The Aviators tallied 240.5 points to easily outdistance second place Davis which pointed 196. Pleasant Grove (104) placed ninth in the 19-team field.

AnnaLee Wright (135), Rhya Balmforth (145), Madison Mayes (170) and Natalie Milligan (190) brought home the gold for the Aviators while Aubrey Meyer (106), Kennedy Fowler (130), and Natali Suarez (190) placed second. Ava Krebs (135) and Taylor Martin (140) earned titles for the Vikings.

In girls dual meet action during the week Cedar Valley topped Tooele 36-24 but lost to Grantsville 54-24, Springville slammed Wasatch 54-28, Mountain View mauled Corner Canyon 54-30, and Mountain Crest doubled up Maple Mountain 48-24.

Boys Wrestling: There were two big tournaments this weekend that definitely gave wrestling fans a good indication who are the best boys teams across the state.

Wasatch hosted the Wasatch Intermountain Duals and Payson went 8-0 in its duals over the weekend including handily defeating the defending 6A champions Pleasant Grove Vikings, 60-18.

Payson had its lion share of excellent individual performances as Kael Theobald (120), Ethan Boulton (132), Colton Theobald (144), Trevor Frank (157), Quayde Beck (165), Chandler Loveless (175), and Landen Shurtleff (190) all went 8-0 in their individual matches over the weekend.

Wasatch didn’t wrestle Payson in the event, but the Wasps and Pleasant Grove took part in a heated battle won by the Vikings 40-38 as both coaching staffs lost team points during the meet.

The meet, which started at 150 pounds went back and forth but Pleasant Grove took control when Jacob Carson (126) and Devyn Greenland (132) posted wins by pin which gave the Vikings an insurmountable lead at 40-26.

During the two days of wrestling against grueling competition, Carson went undefeated for Pleasant Grove while Daxton Bonner (120) and Austin McNaughton (285) went unblemished for Wasatch. Both teams went 6-2 in duals over the weekend.

Lone Peak had two wrestlers go 8-0 with Corbin Baumgartner (175) and Cooper Mumford (285) while returning state champion brothers Cayaen (195) and Mahkyi Smith (215) didn’t drop matches in limited action. Lone Peak went 4-4 in its duals while rival Skyridge was 2-6. Maple Mountain also participated and went 0-6 in its matches.

In Nephi, the returning 5A state champions (Uintah), returning 2A champions (Millard) and host Juab, the returning 3A champions, all did battle in a dual meet format tourney at the Juab Winter Classic. The tournament title literally came down to the last dual meet where Juab defeated Uintah 42-30. Millard placed third losing both to Juab and Uintah.

Three local teams in Salem Hills, Spanish Fork and Timpanogos tested their wares against this elite competition.

Spanish Fork was defeated by Richfield 36-33 in pool action and was relegated to the Silver Pool, but the Dons still went 5-2 overall beating Salem Hills (58-15) and Timpanogos (41-33) along the way.

Karson Shelley (120) and Alex Koyle (157) went undefeated over the weekend for the Dons while Conner Knudsen (126) won all his matches for Timpanogos.

Payson Perfection: For the second time in three seasons Payson has posted a perfect 84-0 score. This time against Cottonwood.

Payson earned eight wins by pin and had six forfeit wins. Winning grapplers for Payson were Parker Marrott (106), Jonah Shaw (113), Kale Theobald (120), Tracen Backus (126), Ethan Boulton (132), William Dixon (138), Colton Theobald (144), Kelton Smith (150), Trevor Frank (157), Quayde Beck (165), Chandler Loveless (175), Landen Shurtleff (190), Ricardo Valdivinos (215) and Zayden Cook (285).

This was the first of two perfect scores in this week’s wrestling as Millard beat South Sevier at the Juab Winter Classic. And this was after South Sevier had won a previous dual meet 42-36.

It might surprise some wrestling fans to know that the first Utah team to pull this feat in the 14-weight classes used currently was Provo in 1997 against rival Timpview. It was just the third one at the time in the United States with 14 weight classes. What was also unique about this match was all the weight classes were actually wrestled as a good amount of 84-0 dual meets are littered with forfeits. Three members of Provo High’s current coaching staff were on that team with head coach Gerrit Greer and assistants Trent Beesley and Shawn Porter.

Lone Peak, then led by current Skyridge head coach Lyle Mangum, actually has the largest margin of victory on record beating Granger 84 to minus one. Not only did the Knights win all 14 bouts by pin or forfeit, but Granger lost a team point for misconduct during the match.

Provo was also on the wrong side of history when they wrestled Uintah in the late 1970’s losing to Uintah 72 to minus one when there were just 12 weight classes.

Dennis and Brian Preece are the only known father-son duo to pull off the perfect dual feat as head coaches as Dennis Preece had a 72-0 win as head coach at Uintah, while son Brian was the coach at Provo when it shut out Timpview.

Perfect dual meets have become much more common over recent years as the gap between teams and individual wrestlers has generally widened. Unlike generations past, the majority of wrestled bouts end by fall and more and more teams can’t fill their weight classes with competitors leading to more forfeits.

In other dual meet action, Payson also pinned down Hillcrest 72-7, Mountain View topped Timpview 73-6 but lost to Corner Canyon 40-32, Wasatch whipped Springville 47-31, Lehi lapped Alta 57-20, Salem Hills slipped past Stansbury 43-30, Cedar Valley crushed Grantsville 58-15, Viewmont mauled Maple Mountain 56-15, Lone Peak beat Brighton 46-36, Timpanogos toppled Jordan 66-9, North Sanpete downed Orem 48-29, Farmington stopped Skyridge 54-30, Tintic pounded Providence Hall 48-30, and in the Battle of the Forks, Spanish Fork downed American Fork 48-28.