A tough west regional competition greeted the Panther wrestling team in Lander on Friday, but 15 athletes secured their spots at the state competition. The Powell High School wrestlers finished fifth overall as a team.

Leading the charge for Powell were sophomore Jimmy Dees at 195 pounds and junior Stetson Davis at 170 pounds, who both placed third in the regional competition.

Dees finished the weekend 3-1, earning all his victories by pins. His only loss came in the semifinal to Jace Grant of Cody in a 9-8 decision.

Davis had a more difficult time placing third, as he lost in the quarterfinal to Dylan Campbell from Cody by a 10-4 decision. However, Davis battled his way back winning four straight matches by pin to finish the day 5-1 and earn third.

“I was proud of how everybody fought this weekend,” Panther head coach Nick Fulton said. “There were a lot of matches we were losing on the weekend but came back and won either by pin or in the third period.”

The next-highest finishers for the Panthers were senior Karson Lamb, who went 2-2 on the day and took home fourth at 182 pounds, and junior Jack Van Norman, who finished fourth at 152 after going 3-2.

Senior Mikey Timmons continued his return to finish fifth, going 1-2 at 138 pounds.

Sixth-place finishers included freshman Wyatt Nicholson at 106 pounds, sophomore Wyatt Heffington at 126, freshman McKale Foley at 145 and junior Lannon Brazelton at 160.

Freshmen Doug Bettger at 220 pounds and Patrick Haney at 132 took seventh. Panther eighth place finishers were junior Weston Thomas at 113, junior Vinny Timmons at 132, sophomore Jonathan Harms at 195 and sophomore Adam Flores at 285.

In total the Panthers qualified 15 athletes, and have a competitor in 13 of 14 weight classes.

“We gotta get ready for another week here and hopefully take a healthy team in,” Fulton said. 

Other Powell athletes who competed were:

Kaiden Apodaca (5-18) who went 0-2 at 106 pounds;

Sam Childers went 0-2 at 113;

Yessenia Teague (3-11) went 0-2 at 120;

Brent Childers (9-20) went 1-2 at 126;

Andrew Valdez (15-17) went 0-2 at 138;

Cody Siefert (8-8) went 0-2 at 145;

Dusty Carter (6-13) went 0-2 at 182;

Jacob Eaton (5-11) went 0-2 at 220.

Overall for the competition, Star Valley won the region with 222 points. The Panthers finished behind Green River, Cody and Pinedale, taking home fifth with 119 points.

Heading into this weekend’s state championships in Casper, Fulton knows there will be tougher and easier competition at different stages, but he’s asked his athletes to not look too far into the brackets and to take it one match at a time.

The Panthers will kick off the state event beginning at 9 a.m. Friday at the Wyoming Ford Center. Bouts on Saturday will start at 9:30 a.m., with championship matches at 3:45 p.m.