Total team effort leads Derby to another Kansas high school boys wrestling state title

It took a true team effort for Derby to win the seventh boys wrestling state championship in school history.

The Panthers sent 13 wrestlers to the Class 6A state tournament at Hartman Arena this past weekend and finished with 10 medalists, four in the finals and one state champion.

Garden City entered the competition deemed to best team in 6A by the Kansas Wrestling Coaches Association, but Derby’s depth proved too much. Derby finished with 193½ points, 25 clear of runner-up Garden CIty in the team race, securing the Panthers’ second title in the last five years but just their second since 1986.

Derby’s lone individual champion was senior Knowlyn Egan, who won the 157-pound division with a 2-1 decision over Olathe North senior Alec Samuelson. The two entered as the top-ranked wrestlers in the weight class — Samuelson won state at 152 last season, while Egan took third at 145 — and it was the Derby senior who prevailed when he scored a reversal in the third period and stonewalled Samuelson the final 36 seconds of the match.

Derby had three other seniors who also reached the state finals in Braden Tatum (126), Troy Allen (144) and Tate Rusher (150).

Tatum and Rusher both rolled to the finals with three straight dominant performances and notched the third medals of their careers, as Tatum finished runner-up three times and Rusher was a 2022 state champion. After missing the regular season with a labrum injury, Allen returned for the postseason and topped No. 1-ranked Noah Conover of Olathe Northwest in the semifinals en route to a runner-up finish.

Derby’s other medalists included senior Miles Wash (third at 215), sophomore Jayden Grijalva (third at 106), junior Peyton Neptune (fourth at 175), senior Layne Sweat (fifth at 138), junior Mason Hopper (fifth at 190) and freshman Maxwell Robinson (sixth at 285). Tanner Heincker, Diego Guana and Lane Bernstorf were also state qualifiers on the championship team.

It was particularly impressive efforts from Hopper and Robinson to end up on the podium after losing their first-round matches. Both had to win four straight elimination matches in the consolation bracket to earn their medal and score Derby a combined 22 points in the process.

The City League produced the only other area 6A medalists in South senior Matt Godsey (fourth at 285) and North senior Richard Shields (fifth at 120).