by nathan oster
After a 15-year drought, Greybull-Riverside is once again the toast of the Class 2A wrestling world.
The Buffs used a team effort, getting points from wrestlers in every weight class but one, to capture their first team title since 1994 and end Cokeville’s four-year stranglehold on the division at last weekend’s State Wrestling Championships in Casper.
The title was the second for G-R, the 10th in Greybull school history and the third in Basin school history — and it will certainly go down as one of the most workmanlike of them all.
Coach Mark Sanford took 17 wrestlers — the most in 2A — to the tournament and left with 11 placers, including a state champion in 189-pounder Bob Anderson and four others, Nate Gossens, Chayce Goton, Clay Cundall and Wes Ridgway, who dropped decisions in the finals and finished second.
“We did the business at hand that we needed to do,” said Sanford, whose team racked up 203.5 points to run away from Cokeville (157), Hulett (154) and the rest of the 2A field.
The key to the whole weekend, he said, was the opening day.
“We had talked all week about what we needed to do in the first round, and about the importance of separating ourselves from the rest of the field in the first round and putting ourselves out there to where it would be hard to catch us,” Sanford said. “To our credit, we came out prepared and ready to go.”
Fourteen of the 17 G-R wrestlers made it through the first round unscathed — with the only exceptions being Jeff Iglehart and Matt Hetzel, who had drawn in and faced top-ranked opponents, and Blaine Gossens, who surrendered a lead and was beaten at 119.
“We knew there were a couple of big matchups and we had to have those to move us into the position that we wanted,” said Sanford.
Payton Vigil, a senior, was involved in one of those. After not placing among the top four in his region, Vigil drew into the tournament and ended up facing Colton Miller, the No. 2 ranked kid in the class. Vigil kept the match close early and ultimately won 5-2. “It was huge,” said Sanford. “If he’d have lost that match, it would have dropped him back down, and hurt us as a team.”
By the end of the first round, the Buffs led the 2A field by 14 points.
“It was exactly how we needed to start,” said Sanford. “We wanted to get out, blow the doors off and just go…get it rolling…and we did that.”
The Buffs kept it going in the second round, “getting wins where we needed to get them” and sending eight wrestlers into the semifinals: Nate Gossens at 125, Nate Hetzel at 130, Luke Zeller at 135 and Vigil at 140, Chayce Goton at 160, Cundall at 171, Anderson at 189 and Ridgway at 215.
Vigil again came up big, beating Cokeville’s Tenor Teichert, who had decisioned him just a week earlier at regionals.
“Another huge win for us,” said Sanford. “In this weight, we knew there were a lot of good kids. And by winning, it ensured us of a place.”
Anderson’s win was also key, Sanford said. The Riverside senior had placed third at the regional, which made his path to the title match all that much harder. “I thought going into state that there were five guys who could realistically end up in the final,” said Sanford.
Anderson hit one of them, Hulett’s Ethan Dirks, in the second round, and used a takedown in the final seconds to emerge with a 4-3 win. “We needed that takedown to win it, and it was huge for our team — and obviously for Bob,” Sanford said. “He found it in himself to get it done. If he’d have lost, it would have put us on the backside.”
Heading into Friday night, 16 of G-R’s 17 wrestlers were still alive.
The Buffs didn’t hurt themselves in the semifinals, either, winning five of those eight matches.
Nate Gossens pinned Southeast’s Randy Jinks at 125.
Hetzel’s match was one that got away, Sanford said. He had beaten Upton’s Caleb Thompson earlier in the season. In Casper, Hetzel started strong, but was unable to close the deal, losing 8-4. “It was a disappointment,” said Sanford. “I thought he would be in the finals.”
Zeller faced Brodey Serres of Lingle-Fort Laramie, who recently dropped down from 140. “Luke wrestled hard — he just hit a kid with a little more salt in him, being a junior,” Sanford said of his freshman, who dropped the match 13-3.
Vigil also had a toughie, drawing the top gun at 140, Rocky Mountain’s J.R. Vezain.  He lost by pin, but it didn’t take away from “a great Friday at the state tournament” for Payton, Sanford said.
The Buffs got it going again at 160, with Goton taking care of the No. 1 wrestler from the East, Hulett’s R.J. Olson, by a  9-4 count.
Cundall followed with a majority decision over Lovell’s Tony Rodriguez.
Anderson got the matchup he wanted at regionals but didn’t get, beating Hayden Davidson of Saratoga 7-2.  “Up and ready for the match,” Anderson took it to Davidson to earn a berth in the final. “He made himself a mountain to climb…but he climbed it on the opening day,” said Sanford.
Ridgway had the easiest time of it, rolling over Boone Bowker of Big Piney with a third-period pin to set up a date with the top 215-pounder in the state, Hulett’s Leland Pfeifer.
By night’s end, the Buffs led the 2A pack by 48 points.
“When we got back to the motel and had our meeting, we talked about 2004, when we had a 24-point lead after Friday and it evaporated in the first two rounds of the wrestlebacks,” said Sanford. “I told them, ‘Wrestling tournaments are not won on Friday. They are won on Saturday.’”
His message, particularly to the kids who lost semifinal matches, was that they needed to be ready to roll when they woke up Saturday morning and headed to the Casper Events Center.
By the time the dust settled Saturday night, it was clear that they had been up to their coach’s challenge.
The final margin of victory was 46.5 points of Cokeville a team that won last year’s title and was the one Sanford pointed to when asked about preseason polls that suggested that his team, and not the Panthers, would be the one to beat this year in 2A.
Sanford’s words in November: “I understand we bring a lot of people back, and everybody knows that. But when you have a team like Cokeville that has won four in a row … I think it’s tough to say, ‘Oh, you are better than them, on paper.’ Cokeville has been the team to beat, and they continue to be.”
Not anymore.
Reflecting on those comments this week, Sanford chuckled.
“One thing I needed for them to realize, was that it’s tough when you have a target on your back from the get-go.  It’s a place these kids had never been before, and it’s tough to be in that situation week in and week out. But this team did it, and they did it with teamwork, depth, hard work and an understanding of what teammates expect of them. We had a great year.”
The Buffs lose four seniors: Blaine Gossens, Vigil,  Goton and Anderson.
“We give up quite a few points, and there were teams in Casper that were younger than us, including Cokeville,” Sanford said. “But we’ll have a good core coming back. It’s going to take a team effort again next year.”

TEAM SCORES: Greybull-Riverside 203.5, Cokeville 157, Hulett 153, Wright 129, Lovell 114, Kemmerer 113, Saratoga 107.5, Rocky Mt. 101, Lusk 98.5, Lingle Ft. Laramie 90.5, Big Piney 75.5, Moorcroft 57, Dubois 53, Southeast 43, Upton 43, HEM 41, Sundance 24, Burns-Pine Bluffs 9, Wind River 9, Shoshoni 7, Kaycee 1.