Doubling up on each date, IHS Wrestling will hit the mats hard and fast in the COVID-shortened 2020-21 winter season. With official practices having commenced on Jan. 19, the Bobcats’ revised schedule shows the team squaring off against two others at every turn.
Up first will be a Feb. 6 journey to Norwood, for an aggressive, high noon 2A San Juan Basin League triangular versus the Mavericks, plus Dove Creek and Mancos, with the latter the loop’s defending champions. Non-league action will follow on the 12th, as IHS travels east to face Del Norte/Monte Vista at 5 p.m.
The next morning at 10 a.m., the ’Cats will grapple at Montezuma-Cortez versus a M-CHS/Dolores aggregation, with DCHS also slated to join the fray.
Ignacio will next host the 2021 Riverside Rumble – La Plata County’s bragging-rights tri involving 4A Durango and 3A Bayfield – on Thurs., Feb. 18., beginning at 5 p.m., then head to Mancos on the 20th to face the Blue Jays, M-CHS/DHS and even Nucla. A start time is yet to be determined, however.
On the 25th, Jordan Larsen’s Bobcats will face a supreme challenge with Pagosa Springs – On The Mat’s preseason No. 1 team in Class 3A – coming to town, along with M-CHS/DHS for a 5 p.m. battle. Regular season work then wraps up Saturday, Feb. 27, with a second trip into the San Luis Valley for a 9 a.m. non-league tri in La Jara against hosting Centauri (the preseason No. 2 in 2A) as well as 2A Trinidad.
Given COVID-19 concerns surrounding the contact-intense sport, the 2A-West Region Championships – its site still to be determined – will be split into two days, March 5 and 6. The lower weights (106-145 pounds) will wrestle on Day 1 and the uppers on Day 2, with a maximum of 112 competitors participating each day and up to 24 at any one time.
There will be no consolation-bracket action until only four individuals remain at each weight, and only the top two wrestlers at each weight will earn the right to advance to State, wrapping up the 86th season of CHSAA-sanctioned wrestling.
Originally reduced this season to a one-day, double-elimination spectacle on March 6, the 2021 State Championships inside Ball Arena in Denver have been reset for Friday and Saturday, March 12-13, though eight-man brackets per weight will still be utilized.