West Linn's Henry Dillingham waits until final seconds to make his title push — again: Oregon wrestling 157/140 big-school roundup
For the second year in a row, West Linn senior Henry Dillingham waited until the final seconds to pull out victory at the OSAA wrestling state championships.
Last year, he needed a stalling penalty and a late reversal to edge South Medford’s Bridger Foss to win the Class 6A 152-pound title.
Saturday night at Portland’s Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Dillingham again trailed by a point with time winding down in the 157 final against Newberg senior Trae Frederick.
But with 10 seconds remaining, Dillingham was able to take down Frederick to pull out a 4-3 decision and win a second title.
How did he do it?
“If I’m being honest, I don’t really know what happened,” he confessed. “I don’t know what to say.”
The victory marked the third time in the past two years Dillingham defeated Frederick, including a win at last month’s Reser’s Tournament of Champions during which he described Frederick as his “good buddy.”
That relationship played a role in what he considered a subpar performance in Saturday’s final.
“Everyone deserved a better match,” Dillingham said. “But what can you do? You can’t change the performance. I knew it was going to come down to us two. We’re the hammers at the weight, and it was just that I finished on top this time.”
Dillingham acknowledged that it wasn’t just in the final that he had difficulty this weekend. He received frequent pep talks via voice mails from Lions three-time state champion Sean Harman, who completed his run in 2019 and is wrestling at the University of Missouri.
“I thought I had won something last year, but nobody cares what you did last year,” Dillingham said. “I had to think that I was hunting, I was still wrestling for something, that I wasn’t protecting anything.
“So, I texted Sean and told him I was being weak-minded and thinking all these bad things, and he helped me through a lot of it. I’ve really got to thank him a lot for that.”
5A: Senior Jared Ake made it back-to-back titles for Redmond wrestlers, following Joseph Downing’s victory by taking down Mountain View’s Brady Johns 7-4 in a rematch of their Intermountain district final a week earlier.
6A/5A Girls: Forest Grove junior Kennedy Blanton, who lost in the championship match each of the previous two years, came out on top with a 7-4 decision over Thurston’s Kristal Zamora in the 140-pound final.
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Meet the champions: Class 6A | Class 5A | Class 4A | Class 3A | Class 2A/1A | Class 6A/5A Girls | Class 4A/3A/2A/1A Girls
Vote for best wrestler: Class 6A | Class 5A | Class 4A | Class 3A | Class 2A/1A | Class 6A/5A Girls | Class 4A/3A/2A/1A Girls
Previewing the state meets: Class 6A | Class 5A | Class 4A | Class 3A | Class 2A/1A | Class 6A/5A Girls | Class 4A/3A/2A/1A Girls
Recapping the district meets: Class 6A | Class 5A | Class 4A | Class 3A | Class 2A/1A | Class 6A/5A Girls | Class 4A/3A/2A/1A Girls
COMPLETE COVERAGE OF 2024 OSAA WRESTLING CHAMPIONSHIPS
Photos by Taylor Balkom
