Nucla Middle School celebrated two state placers at the state wrestling tournament over the weekend, and head coach Rob McCabe told the Forum they might be the first middle school state placers in Nucla’s history.
Hunter Johnson, wrestling at 110 pounds, ended up fifth place. Coach said he wrestled really well, and between him and Kynnlie McCabe, the other state placer wrestling at 116 pounds, they were both right there in all their matches.
“They both had super close losses,” he said. “The difference in being a state champion or a fifth place is razor sharp.”
At such a high level of wrestling, coach said it comes down to how a call can go, or not giving up a position in wrestling. He said the competition was extremely tough, and the kids wrestled very well.
“It wasn’t that they got blown out of the water by anybody,” he said.
Johnson was up in his first match, but lost. He was winning 4-1 and gave up a reversal and had a near-fall, but ended up losing 4-6. The young wrestler came back through the consolation side, though, and lost in the consolation semifinals to a kid out of Windsor that had the better match.
“We came up short in that one again, but he dominated his kid for fifth place,” McCabe said. “He dominated the last match, and it was fun to watch.”
Kynnlie McCabe made it to the semifinals and was in a tight match. Coach said his staff went back through the video, due to wife Brandie McCabe’s close eye, and the opponent had Nucla’s girl in an illegal headlock — unfortunate and not caught by referees.
“Sure enough, the girl grabbed her head and pulled her around and Kynnlie fell and got pinned,” coach said. “In that match, the girl was winning 1-0, and we were right there.”
The young Nucla woman bounced back and beat a girl from Trinidad, 2-0, in the consolation semifinals for third and fourth, and she got thrown into another type of headlock. She was pinned with one second left.
McCabe said he was extremely proud, as both a dad and a coach, of his daughter.
“She was right there in both matches, she lost and that girl that beat her took second,” he said. “It’s the same as Hunter Johnson. They were both right there to be the best of the best.”
Coach said at the middle school state tournament, there are no classifications for schools. In this way, the small schools wrestle kids from big schools. It’s all combined.
“It does’t matter if you go to a big middle school in Fort Collins, or a small one on the Western Slope,” he said. “You’re all together competing … It’s cool to see that small town kids from Nucla, Colorado can compete with bigger city schools and those kids who have access to year-round training camps and clubs they go to. It’s really fun to see, and we can compete there.”
McCabe said it was important to thank the local wresting club, the West End Hammers, and coaches Tryllen Richards, David Johnson and Freddie Smith. He said those guys prepared the middle school wrestlers with their fall and winter practices and taking the kids to tournaments before school wrestling began.
“They came in ready to wrestle,” McCabe said.
