By Justin Adams | [email protected]

An impressive total of nine wrestlers from the Mountain Ridge wrestling program qualified for the state meet, which was held Feb. 18-19 (after the City Journals’ press deadline).

“We had a great season,” said head coach Mitchell Stevens. “We were undefeated in region duals and ended up region champions for the first time. We got a couple top-ranked kids so we’re doing pretty well.”

One of those individual wrestlers is Layne Kleimann, a freshman wrestling in the 106-pound weight class. Not only did he take first in the state’s all-star meet, but he took first place in a national competition for greco wrestling last summer.

Another wrestler who qualified for state was Kyison Garcia. After winning a state championship in his weight class as a freshman, he took third place last year wrestling on a broken leg. Now a junior, he competed in the 126-pound weight class.

Other Sentinel wrestlers who qualified for state include Hunter Sanchez (106), Chanden Reid (132), Preston Stevens (138), Jaxon Bearden (144), Cody Stewart (165), Cayden Thomson (175) and William Adamson (215).

Qualification for state was based on a divisional meet that took place at the beginning of February. To qualify, a wrestler had to finish in the top eight for their respective weight class. With the state’s 6A teams divided into two divisional meets, that results in a total of 16 wrestlers per weight class who move on to the state meet.

The Sentinels were assigned to a divisional meet held at Westlake High School, where they finished in fourth place as a team, behind Layton, Westlake and Fremont.

Individually, Kleimann, Garcia and Stevens (the son of coach Stevens) took first place among their divisional opponents.