4A Boys Wrestling: Mead Makes History by Winning School’s First State Wrestling Championship
DENVER – Mead High School was expected to be the best team in Class 4A wrestling this season – and the Mavericks lived up to the hype.
Otto Black (138 pounds), Jake Glade (150 pounds), Leister Bowling IV (175 pounds), Dalton Berg (190), and Grant Gordon (285) won state titles to power the Mavericks to the school’s first-ever state team wrestling title Saturday night at the Ball Arena.
Mead finished atop the standings with 177.5 points followed by Pueblo East at 132.5.
“This is pretty incredible,” Mead coach Ty Tatham said. “They are just a great hard-working group of kids who are a lot of fun to be around. They have fun. They train hard. They are great on and off the mat. This is just an incredible experience and to be with such a great group of kids makes it even better.
“I live in Mead, and so just to be in that community and do something that brings people a lot of pride means a lot to me.”
The state title was emotional for Tatham since he has been Mead’s head wrestling coach since the school opened its doors in 2009. Prior to going to Mead, Tatham was the wrestling boss at Longmont High School for 14 years.
“We have a good collection of kids who came up together,” said Tatham, whose team qualified 11 guys for the state tourney. “We have some really outstanding leaders, and you add a kid like Otto Black into the mix and he elevated everybody else in the room by how he works and how he wrestles.”
Black competed for Ponderosa as a freshman and sophomore, placing second at 106 pounds and fourth at 113 pounds. He didn’t wrestle a year ago and then transferred to Mead this fall. He edged Roosevelt’s Chris LaLonde (50-5) 3-2 in the finals.
Black, a senior, finished the season with a 52-0 record.
“This feels good to end my high school career with a win and to win a state championship as a team,” said Black, who is undecided on a college but is making a visit to the University of Iowa in a couple of months.
Black started a barrage for the Mavericks. Glade beat Kellen Engelhardt of Thompson Valley, 10-8 in overtime.
Bowling followed suit to claim an 8-0 major decision over Canon City’s Jack Doughty. This was Bowling’s second win against Doughty this season.
“This is just the start of a great ascend for me,” Bowling said about his first state crown. “I’m really happy to carry my family’s legacy on and be as dominant as I can. I consider myself to be one of the leaders of the team and I’m so proud of my guys. We have come a long way from the beginning of the year, and we came back strong and won this thing.”
Bowling’s father, Leister Bowling III, was a three-time state champ at Lyons High School.
Berg was a 4-0 victor over Roosevelt’s Bronco Hartson and Gordon pinned Skyline’s Rene Perez, Skyline, (40-4).
The humble Tatham wasn’t going to spend too much time celebrating Saturday night.
“This is going to sound crazy, but I have to get up early (Sunday) and go watch my oldest son (Tommy) wrestle in a tournament at Colorado School of Mines, he is a sophomore wrestles for Western Colorado at heavyweight,” said Tatham, whose son Trey is a sophomore and wrestle at 106 pounds for Mead.
Individually, Thompson Valley’s Jackzen Rairdon was going for state title No. 4, but was denied, dropping an 8-4 decision to Sand Creek’s Landon Drury (37-1).
