Togetherness the key for 4A wrestling champion Sweet Home: ‘When one of them gets cut, the others, they all bleed’
Kyle Sieminski celebrated becoming Sweet Home’s first four-time state champion Friday night at Portland’s Veterans Memorial Coliseum.
For a moment, though, the Huskies senior took time to savor the thought of doing so on the same night his team reclaimed the OSAA Class 4A championship — their first team title since the COVID 2021 season and first at the Coliseum since 2017.
“It’s like a fairy tale, man,” Sieminski said after winning the 120-pound final. “It’s pretty crazy. Everything I wanted is kind of unfolding right now, so it’s pretty awesome.”
Sieminski talked about how “this whole team just feels like a family,” and his coach, Steve Thorpe, also referenced that sense of togetherness as playing a big role in the program’s 10th championship.
“They care about each other,” Thorpe said. “When one of them gets cut, the others, they all bleed.”
Sieminski was one of five Sweet Home finalists and one of three to win titles — Jesse Landtroop (106) and Ashton Swanson (175) joined him atop the podium. In all, 13 of Sweet Home’s 18 qualifiers took home a medal.
“We put five in the finals and have eight others in the back — that’s a lot of points,” Thorpe said. “We got our falls, we pinned people, and that’s what we needed to do.”
The result was the most points by a 4A champion since Crook County amassed 327 nine years ago. The Cowboys were runners-up for the fourth time in the past six years, with senior Gavin Sandoval coming back from a torn ACL in his right knee suffered in August to win his second title in the 190 final.
Landon Lavey (138) and Norman Reynolds (215) also won championships for Crook County.
La Grande had its two-year title run come to an end but still placed third, led by Eastern Oregon signee Kai Carson (132) winning his third title and Tommy Belding (144) and Ridge Kehr (165) their firsts.
Junior Skyler Sutton (113) was the only one of Cascade’s three finalists to win a championship, but the Cougars made the podium for the first time since 2020 by finishing fourth.
Henley senior Dylan Clark (126) won a second state title, going 102-1 during his two-year run. Astoria senior Matthew Evans also repeated as the champion at 285 pounds.
Philomath sophomore Riley Barrett completed an undefeated season (48-0) by winning the 150 championship. He and Scappoose’s Maverick Heimbuck (157) were among nine first-time champions crowned Friday.
