Wildcats send 3 to state tournament

Cashion’s wrestling program continues to ascend.

For the second straight year, Cashion is sending three male wrestlers to the state tournament while several others were on the cusp.

And, for the first time, the Wildcats were the highest- scoring county team at their regional.

Headed to state are Cale Browning at 113 pounds, Carlos Martinez at 165 and heavyweight Matthew Stockton after their showing last weekend at the Class 3A west regional in Kingfisher.

Martinez and Stockton are returnees for Cashion as they made history a year ago in becoming the program’s first qualifiers.

Stockton was the runner-up to Trey Williams of Mangum at this year’s regional.

Martinez placed third and Browning was fourth for Cashion.

They helped the team to 92.5 points, which was good for eighth overall out of 30 teams that scored points in the regional.

Marlow won the team title with 279.5 points. Pawnee was the runner-up with 192 and Comanche third with 185.5.

Hennessey also landed a state qualifier as Kason Scruggs placed fourth at 138 pounds.

The Eagles were 16th in the team standings with 54.5 points.

Kingfisher with its two state qualifiers ( Note: See story on Page 1) was 13th as a team with 63.5 points.

Stockton not only got to state a year ago, but also won a wrestle-in match to reach the main bracket.

He’s already in the main bracket this year.

His 4-1 win over Derrick Pratt in the semifinals secured that spot.

Stockton then pushed Williams, who is 35-1 on the season, in the championship bout.

It went to a tie-breaker before Williams prevailed 2-1.

Martinez also won a wres- tle-in match a year ago, but is also in the main bracket.

Martinez won his first two bouts to land in the semifinal where he was defeated by Sean Moore of Warner in the third period.

Martinez bounced back to pick up an 8-1 decision over Hobart’s Luke Tacker in the consolation semifinal.

It was the second win for Martinez over Tacker in the tournament.

Martinez then pinned Jason Powders of Henryetta to lock up his bronze medal.

Browning got a bye into the quarterfinal round where he beat Dakota Cox of Watonga with a 21-13 major decision.

Landon Earp of Chan-dler knocked off Browning in the semifinal, but Browning came back to pin Rhett Nelson of Oklahoma Christian School in the consolation semifinal.

Wrestling for third, Browning was pinned by Cox in their rematch and settled for fourth place.

Two other Cashion wrestlers - Jacob Reese at 190 and Cameron Bilen at 215 - were able to reach the fifth consolation round before being eliminated.

Houston Jerry (150) and Reese Ratcliff (144) made the fourth round of consolation.

Scruggs got knocked into the consolation bracket when he was defeated by Brennen Harris of Marlow in the quarterfinals.

He came back to earn a technical fall and two pins to land in the third place match, once again to face Harris.

The Outlaw bested him again, this time with a fall at 1:58.

He’ll join Kingfisher’s two qualifiers in the wrestle- in round, which begins at 6 p.m. Thursday at State Fair Arena.

Winners of those wrestle- in matches make their way into the double-elimination brackets. Those first-round matches begin at 9:30 a.m. Friday.

The second session Friday begins at 4 p.m. with wrestle back and then the semifinals are at 7:30 p.m.

Saturday sessions are at 9:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m., the last of which will be championship finals only.

Top 20 Team Scores

Marlow 279.5 Pawnee 192 Comanche 185.5 Hinton 139 OCS 119.5 Sperry 104 CommunityChristian 99 Cashion 92.5 Mangum 88 Davis 80 Watonga 78.5 Chandler 69 Kingfisher 63.5 Little Axe 61 Warner 55.5 Hennessey 54.5 Crossings 52 Hobart 51 Bethel 50.5 Checotah 49 *30 Teams scored points