6 Maricopa wrestlers advance to state meet

Six wrestlers from Maricopa High School will be making the trip to Prescott later this week to compete in the Division III State Wrestling Championships.

Maricopa seniors Shakeil Becker, Louis Ochoa, Joey Kelly and Sean Dodge, along with junior Adolfo Franco and freshman Sky Murcek, qualified for the state meet by placing among the top six in their weight classes at last weekend’s sectional tournament at Tucson Empire High School.

Eleven MHS wrestlers competed in the sectional. With six of them placing, the Rams achieved their goal of qualifying at least half of their competitors to the state meet.

“The guys were satisfied and quite elated at the end of the day,” coach Conroy Bowman said. “It was really great to see that.”

Becker finished third in the sectional at 145 pounds, and Murcek placed third at 103. Franco was the fourth-place finisher at 140, while Ochoa (152) and Kelly (171) each placed fifth.

The top five finishers in each weight class at the sectional automatically qualified for the state tournament. Dodge also is advancing to state as a sixth-place sectional finisher, having won a tiebreaker (best overall season winning percentage) over the sixth-place wrestlers from the Division III sectionals at Payson and Phoenix Greenway.

Bowman said that five of Maricopa’s state qualifiers had to advance through the sectional brackets the hard way after losing their second-round matches.

“We kind of regrouped thereafter, because at that point our only wrestler who had advanced to the semifinals was Sky Murcek at 103,” Bowman said. “At that point, we knew we had to make a run at it in order to qualify, and we knew the only way to do that was to advance through the consolation bracket.”

Franco and Kelly qualified for the state meet for the second consecutive season.

In order to make it out of the 171-pound bracket, Kelly had to beat Seth Ward of Safford in the match for fifth place. In the previous round, Ward had pinned Gilbert Campo Verde’s Alex Braden, a wrestler who had defeated Kelly three times during the regular season.

Kelly was equal to the challenge, taking a 2-0 lead over Ward in the first period and maintaining an advantage throughout the match.

“It came down to the final 15 seconds,” Bowman said. “Joey capped it off convincingly with a pin in the final 10 seconds. Knowing that he beat this guy who had beaten the guy he had lost to three times does a lot for his confidence.”

Kelly (31-12 on the season) will wrestle against Kayenta Monument Valley’s Dion Bailey (31-11) in the opening round of the state meet, which takes place Friday and Saturday at Tim’s Toyota Center in Prescott.

Murcek (30-11) will have a first-round state-tournament rematch against Tucson Amphitheater’s Marcus Salnicky (34-9), who defeated him by decision in the sectional semifinals.

Franco (29-17) will face Safford’s Tim Hart (33-10) in the opening round, while Becker (31-13) will square off against Jawuan Pugh (14-5) of Phoenix Thunderbird.

Ochoa (5-3) will wrestle against Bradley Cutliffe (25-9) of Thunderbird in the first round, while Dodge (32-15) has an opening-round match-up against Hunter King (38-3) of Buckeye.

“I think the big thing will be for them to have confidence in themselves, that they can compete with the individual they have in front of them,” Bowman said. “I think the confidence is there now. We believe we can compete. And the concept of doing combination moves, I think we are peaking at this point. That is really satisfying to see.”