Kochenower voted OW at Western

Two Kingfisher High School grapplers had gold medals draped around their necks and one was named Outstanding Wrestler at last weekend’s Western Conference Wrestling Tournament.

Senior Brayden Kochenower and junior Jaxon Sheppard won their respective weight classes at the two-day event held at the APB.

Kochenower was the victor at 144 and Sheppard at 132.

Though they were two of only three Jacket wrestlers to place, they did enough scoring to pace KHS to a fifth-place finish in the team standings.

Weatherford won the team title with 221.5 points. Harrah was the runner-up with 195.

Pawnee placed third with 162.5 and Heritage Hall, with its 131.5 points, took fourth.

Kingfisher managed 101.

There were 25 teams that scored points in the tournament.

Sophomore Chance Dunn was Kingfisher’s only other placer outside of the two champs.

Dunn was sixth at 150 pounds and scored 14 team points.

After advancing to the quarterfinal round, Dunn was bested 10-7 by Alston Martin of Weatherford.

He came back to win two straight consolation matches - one by fall and one by major decision before falling to Tyson Brookter of Clinton in the consolation semifinals.

That landed Dunn in the fifth-place match where he lost to Samuel Byers of Harrah.

Kochenower and Sheppard were two of the most dominant wrestlers in the tournament.

Sheppard only saw one of his five matches go the distance and that was in the semifinals against Brody Byers of Harrah.

Byers was a state qualifi er a year ago, but couldn’t stack up against Sheppard, who advanced the championship with a 9-1 major decision.

Once in the finals, Sheppard was pushed to the third period, but eventually pinned Geary’s Oakley Pratt in 5:02.

Sheppard also garnered falls in his first three matches as he pinned Casady’s Davis Garner in the first period, Woodward’s Mason Arnold in the third and Anadarko’s Shawn Palmer in the first.

“He had a really good tournament,” coach Steven Wilson said of the twotime state qualifier. “He’s wrestling really, really well right now.”

Only one of Kochenower’s four matches went past 1:00 on the mat.

Like Sheppard, Kochenower went the distance in the semifinals.

There he faced Clinton’s Vicente Gutierrez-Banuelos and won via a 16-7 major decision.

Gutierrez-Banuelos was a state qualifier last year, as was Davis’ Asher Digby, Kochenower’s opponent in the finals.

Digby lasted all of 47 seconds before being pinned by the Yellowjacket.

Kochenower just missed out on placing at the Cushing Tournament the weekend before.

He was pinned in two matches in which he had sizable leads.

“I was really worried about how he’d respond to that,” Wilson said.

“So I’m proud of the way he came back this week- end. It showed a lot.”

Kochenower needed 52 seconds and 55 seconds to win his first two matches of the tournament and was voted Outstanding Wrestler for the tournament.

Sheppard was second in the voting.

The two combined for 64 of Kingfisher’s points.

The Kingfisher junior high boys placed third in the team standings with 144 points.

Channing Dunn captured the title at 140 pounds and made a dominant run through his bracket.

Dunn was 5-0 with five pins and only had one match go beyond the first period. His title match saw him pin Geary’s Zach Castleberry in 1:47.

Dunn was the only junior high Jacket to reach the finals, but two others did claim bronze medals.

Cohen Wallace took third at 92 and Dominic Long did the same at heavyweight.

Also placing for Kingfi sher were: Owen Kennedy, fifth at heavyweight; Izeyah Dile, fifth at 195; Cooper Richardson, sixth at 170; and Lucas Jackson, sixth at 155.

•••

Carlos Martinez captured gold for Cashion.

Martinez won the 175-pound title by knocking off Lukas Burd of Weatherford 8-3 in the championship bout.

That capped a 4-0 run through the tournament for Martinez.

It started with a 14-0 major decision against Cache’s Marshall Downing before he pinned Harrah’s Colter Hodge in 47 seconds in the quarterfinals.

His semifinal bout saw Martinez edge Pawnee’s Hunter Patterson 2-0.

Martinez scored 27 of Cashion’s 55 points.

The Wildcats also had Cale Browning take fourth at 113 pounds.

Their junior high team brought home a gold as Andrew Stockton was the champ at 132 pounds.

Stockton went 5-0 in the tournament and beat Anadarko’s Damian Nation 12-10 in the finals.

Hennessey had one placer in the high school ranks as Kason Scruggs was sixth at 138 pounds.

The Eagles scored 50 team points.

They did have a champion in junior high.

Raiden Briley went 4-0 with four falls to win the heavyweight crown.

He pinned Tonkawa’s Steven Jones at 3:28 to capture gold.

Rogan Choate reached the 126-pound championship match, but was defeated by Tommy White of Anadarko and took home silver.

He went 4-1 in his matches.