CASPER – Landon Trujillo watched the final seconds tick off the clock as he squeezed his legs around Cole Wirtz’s torso and left leg Saturday evening at the Ford Wyoming Center.

The Cheyenne East senior was literally trying to hang on to the Class 4A 120-pound championship while Wirtz was trying to escape and send the bout into overtime.

Trujillo rode out the Kelly Walsh wrestler for a 7-6 victory.

“I wrestled tough and capitalized during the times he did something wrong, and I was able to get into his legs and finish shots,” said Trujillo, who was the state runner-up at 113 pounds during his junior season.  Trujillo trailed 5-2 heading into the third period, but quickly tallied an escape to cut Wirtz’s lead to 5-3. Trujillo knotted the score 5-5 by getting a single-leg trip with 1 minute, 18 seconds remaining in the match. He nearly scored back points on the edge of the mat before the pair went out of bounds. Trujillo allowed Wirtz to escape on the subsequent restart, and fell behind 6-5 with 45 seconds remaining.

Trujillo was confident he could secure the win after giving away the escape point.

“I was doing better on my feet throughout the match than I was on top or bottom,” he said. “I thought it was a smarter decision to let him escape. I knew I could take him down when I needed to.”

Trujillo quickly got in on Wirtz’s right leg, tripped him and scored the winning takedown with 34 seconds to go.

Trujillo celebrated his triumph by leaping into the arms of his father, East head coach Thad Trujillo.

“I knew Landon had more gas left in the tank at the end of that match than Wirtz did,” Thad Trujillo said. “Landon always works hard in practice, and is doing extra running all the time. Plus, we had a little bit more momentum after scoring three or four points.

“We decided to let him up and trust our offense on our feet instead of riding him out.”

Trujillo wasn’t the only East wrestler to cap his career with a title after finishing as runner-up the previous season. Senior 160-pounder Jackson Hesford actually was a two-time second-place finisher, but picked up a 7-3 victory over Sheridan’s Colson Coon in a bout that wasn’t as close as the final score.

Hesford’s celebration was much more subdued. He merely walked over to East’s corner and embraced his father, Stephen Hesford, who is an East assistant coach.

“I was in shock, and I didn’t know how to react after finally winning,” Jackson Hesford said. “I have put in so much hard work. I came into this season wanting to push harder than I ever have.

“All the extra work and all the running paid off.”

Two of Coon’s three points came on allowed escapes. Hesford tallied three takedowns and an escape of his own to win comfortably.

“He wrestled really smart, and had good, clean finishes,” East coach Thad Trujillo said. “He always scores a lot of points, so we were confident in that. He wrestled the way he wanted to.”

East senior Blaise Ronnau had lost all four of his matchups with Sheridan’s Hayden Crow over the past two seasons. Ronnau won the most significant meeting, grabbing a 7-5 victory to win the 170-pound state championship.

“I was tired of losing to him,” Ronnau said. “I had to keep him from scrambling and getting his ties. I did my best to wrestle smart and get him to go where I needed him.”

After a scoreless first period, Ronnau went ahead 1-0 with an escape just 4 seconds into the second. He added a takedown by keeping his toes inside the ring as the pair went off the mat for a 3-0 lead midway through the period. Another point was added to Ronnau’s score because of unsportsmanlike conduct by Crow after the takedown.

Crow cut the lead to 4-3 with an escape and takedown, but trailed 5-3 entering the third after Ronnau notched another escape.

Ronnau’s final points came with 18 seconds on the clock when he fought off a single-leg attempt on his right leg and got around Crow to gain control.

“I’ve worked on getting to the side and working angles with coach (Charles) Fournier so much this year,” Ronnau said. “It was there when I needed it most because we had worked on it so much.”

Senior Bradley Whitright repeated as the 195-pound champion by pinning Kelly Walsh’s Aragon Garro in 3:43. Whitright led 6-1 when he turned Garro for the pin.

“We’ve wrestled in the past, and he tends to get a little high,” Whitright said. “I knew I could shift him off and switch my hips out to create space and he would go right over the top of me.”

Whitright finished the season 40-2, and said his repeat could be a lesson for all wrestlers.

“I didn’t even qualify for state my freshman year,” he said. “This shows everyone that it’s not about how you start, it’s about how you end.”

East sophomore Keagan Bartlett also made the finals, but lost a 10-2 major decision to Sheridan’s Brock Steel.

The Thunderbirds finished fourth in the team standings with 188 points. Natrona County won the team title with 247.5, while Sheridan was second at 243.5. Thunder Basin took third with 224.

East also had Gavyn Aumiller (285 pounds) place fourth, Cade Pugh (145) and Dominic Lopez (182) take fifth, and Cael Pugh (152), Colby Olson (160) and Trevor Eldridge (195) place sixth.

Cheyenne Central finished eighth in the team standings with 87 points.

The Indians had Wyatt Weiss (113), Nathan Lundberg (160) and James Koenig (285) all win fifth place, while Bryson Heilbut (113), Slater Bates (145) and Charlie Nichols (170) finished fifth.

Cheyenne South was 12th in the team race with 35 points. The Bison had senior Blakely Blanchard capture fourth at 170 pounds, while classmate Gabe Trujillo was fifth at 126.

PREP WRESTLING

CLASS 4A STATE TOURNAMENT

Team Scores

1. Natrona County 247.5; 2. Sheridan 243.5; 3. Thunder Basin 224; 4. Cheyenne East 188; 5. Kelly Walsh 166; 6. Rock Springs 114; 7. Evanston 98.5; 8. Cheyenne Central 87; 9. Campbell County 86.5; 10. Laramie 81; 11. Jackson 38; 12. Cheyenne South 35.

Cheyenne Central Results

106 pounds: Custis 1-2; Bomhoff 0-2; 113: Weiss, fifth, 3-2; Heilbut, sixth, 2-3; 120: Kirkwood 0-2; 126: Mossberg 2-2; Silvis 0-2; 132: Hilliker 2-2; Ferrari 0-2; 138: Beal 1-2; Kopf 0-2; 145: Bates, sixth, 3-3; 152: King 2-2; 160: N. Lundberg, fifth, 4-2; Rentz 1-2; 170: Nichols, sixth, 3-3; 182: Da. Mattimoe 1-2; Miller 0-2; 195: Kostelecky 2-2; Smith 0-2; 220: Cox 0-2; 285: Koenig, fifth, 4-2.

Cheyenne East Results

106 pounds: A. Ronnau 1-2; Mansur-Holaday 1-2; 113: Be. Whitright 0-2; D. Fogg 1-2; 120: Trujillo, first, 4-0; Williams 1-2; 138: Mead 1-2; Stewart 2-2; 145: Cade Pugh, fifth, 4-2; Dorrell 1-2; 152: Cael Pugh, sixth, 2-3; Scott 2-2; 160: Hesford, first, 4-0; Olson, sixth, 3-3; 170: B. Ronnau, first, 4-0; Lawrence 2-2; 182: K. Bartlett, second, 3-1; D. Lopez, fifth, 4-2; 195: Br. Whitright, first, 4-0; Eldridge, sixth, 3-3; 220: Jos. Aragon 2-2; Bower 2-2; 285:G. Aumiller, fourth, 3-2; Gav. Gipfert 2-2.

Cheyenne South Results

120 pounds: Morgan 0-2; 126: Trujillo, fifth, 3-2; Gallegos 1-2; 132: Gregory 1-2; J. Soden 0-2; 145: Weber 0-2; 152: I. Wood 1-2; 170: Blanchard, fourth, 3-2.

Jeremiah Johnke is the WyoSports editor. He can be reached at jjohnke@wyosports.net or 307-633-3137. Follow him on Twitter at @jjohnke.