With four pins in four matches this weekend, Daniel Cardenas left no doubt as to his storied place in Colorado wrestling history.
The Pomona senior became the state’s 30th four-time state champion, pinning Douglas County’s Justin Kelchen for the Class 5A 152-pound crown at Ball Arena on Saturday night. The pin distanced Pomona in the standings from runner-up Ponderosa and sealed the Panthers’ fourth consecutive Class 5A title, giving Cardenas eight total titles in his prep career.
Pomona finished with 256.5 points, while Ponderosa had 239. Both of those marks are scoring records for the state tournament, breaking the previous record of 232, set by Wiggins in 1999.
“I’ve been dreaming of this for a long time,” Cardenas said. “To be Pomona’s first (four-timer) means a ton. I had so many role models in this program growing up, so for them not to do it, it pushed me even harder to become a four-timer.”
After earning first-period pins in the preliminaries and quarterfinals, Cardenas had pins in the second periods of the semifinals and finals to finish a sparkling 39-0. The Stanford pledge didn’t lose in the state of Colorado as an upperclassmen, and won three prestigious national tournaments this season — Doc Buchanan, Reno and Ironman — in addition to titles at the Arvada West Invitational and Top of the Rockies.
Cardenas said the double titles for himself and his teammates “makes it 10 time sweeter.”
“You want your individuals success (to mirror) the team — we’ve grinded through as a team, got all 14 wrestlers here, we placed 13,” Cardenas said. “We did what we needed to do on the back end to score points. We had some adversity with Dante (Hutchings) getting DQ’d (on Thursday due to a mouthguard issue), and for him to come back all the way and get third, it’s inspiring to be on this team.”
Cardenas was determined not to suffer the same fate as the two Pomona wrestlers before him who lost out on a fourth title as a senior. Theorius Robison lost in the semifinals in 2019, and Tom Clum famously lost the first match of his career in the finals in 2001.
“I know there were going to be a lot of distractions (entering this season), but (my mindset was) to outwork everyone and if it takes being lonely, be lonely,” Cardenas said. “This a lonely path… You see the (unusual) things that can happen, like with Theorius and Tom Clum. They made some mistakes of letting up on opponents, and I wasn’t going to let that happen.”
Two other Panthers won titles Saturday. Junior Jakob Romero won his second crown with a 10-4 decision over Poudre freshman Billy Greenwood at 126 pounds. And senior Elijah Olguin also won his second title with a 6-3 decision over Monarch junior Emilio Trujillo-Deen at 132 pounds, avenging a pair of losses to Trujillo-Deen earlier in the season.
Additionally, sophomore Geno Cardenas was fourth at 106, junior Mark Cardenas third at 113, senior Jeramiah Steele fourth at 120, junior Vincent Cabral third at 138, senior Josiah Parsons third at 145, sophomore Dante Hutchings third at 160, senior Roman Cruz second at 170, senior Jacob Judd third at 182, junior Justin Cullen fourth at 195 and junior Jose Rosales third at 285.
“Right out of the hole we had some adversity in this tournament,” Pomona coach Sam Federico said. “That knocks you off your plan a little bit, and we lost some matches in the semis that I wish we could have back. But the guys came through and wrestled hard all morning — we went 16-of-19 in our (consolation) matches, including 13 in a row. That doesn’t happen very often. We could’ve easily had fifth and sixths instead of third and fourths.”
Ponderosa was 38 points ahead in the Class 5A team standings after Friday, but after Pomona’s strong performance in the consolation round, the Panthers leapfrogged the Mustangs and held a 20.5-point advantage they never relinquished.
“Pondo has nothing to be ashamed of — they brought 13 guys down here, placed 12 of them, had seven in the finals,” Federico said. “They had a good tournament and that’s a really good team.”
The Mustangs had four individual champions: sophomore Jacob Myers at 120, junior Jacob Bostelman at 138, senior Murphy Menke at 160 and senior Karter Johnson at 170.
