Seasons roar to a close

SPORTS SHORTS
Brian Robinson, Cole Eldredge and Austin Wilcox joined the long list of state wrestling champions from Monticello High School last weekend at the Utah State Wrestling Championships held at UVU.  
Robinson, a junior, won his second state championship, while Eldredge, a freshman, and Wilcox, a sophomore, captured their first titles.  
The list of Buckaroos to finish second is just as long and is nothing to shake a stick at. Two more Buckaroos join that list, Hunter Bowring and Brandon Musselman, with Bowring for the second time.
Although the Buckaroos placed second in the team championship to Altamont, their performance bodes well for the future as 11 of the 14 wrestlers who participated placed, and ten of those 11 placers will be back next year and 12 of the 14 overall.  
Look for the Bucks to battle the Longhorns again next year. However, only one of Altamont’s six state champions is a senior.
The Bronco wrestling team placed three wrestlers in the 2A tournament, led by a fourth place finish by Jade Grover at 138 pounds.
Dallin Jacobson finished fifth at 126 pounds. Grover and Jacobson each won three matches at the tournament and fought their way to bouts in the semifinal rounds.
Chase Richmond placed sixth at 220 pounds, winnng three matches and fighting through the consolation bracket.
Jens Grover won two matches at 170 pounds. Also wrestling for the young Bronco team were Taylor Tanner, Kaden Rose, Jason McDaniels, and Trevor Buck.
Former Buckaroo JJ Larsen, who cut his teeth on wrestling before he moved from Monticello a few years ago, won the 182 pound division in 5A.  Larsen, who wrestles for Bingham High School, won his title match 9-6 to grab the state title.  JJ is the son of Matt and Abby Larsen.  
JJ was in the news for another reason a couple of years ago when he helped save the life of one of his friends.  When Bailee Robison had a seizure in a swimming pool in South Jordan, JJ used his scout training he got in Monticello to save her life until paramedics arrived.  
After getting Bailee out of the pool, (as quoted in the Red Cross website), “J.J. had no time to think, he simply reacted using the lifesaving skills he had learned as a Boy Scout. He laid her in a recovery position—on her side--and monitored her pulse and her breathing. Meanwhile Bailee’s friends were also responding. One friend called 911, another covered her with a towel to keep her warm, while still another called Bailee’s mother. Other friends worked to move Bailee to the front of the house to get her to the ambulance.”  
The group of friends was honored by the Red Cross for their lifesaving efforts.
The San Juan Broncos basketball seasons, boys and girls, ended suddenly at the 2A play-in contests last weekend at Snow College.   
The girls were upended by the Kanab Lady Cowboys, 53-33, to close their season with a 13-8 record.  The Lady Broncos just couldn’t get untracked at the annual play-in event and watched as the Cowboys raced to a 21-4 first quarter lead.
It was a deficit the Broncos could not recover from, even though they kept pace in scoring, 32-29 after that first quarter.  But when your season is depending on the outcome of a play-in game, a deficit like that is hard to overcome.  
Brooke Lyman led the Broncos in scoring with eight.  Lindsey Christensen and Teal Palmer ended their Bronco careers with six points apiece.
The Boys from Blanding fared no better than the girls, falling to the Beaver Beavers from Beaver, 51-43.  Beaver prevailed in the tight throughout contest, and though the Broncos fought hard, they couldn’t get over the dam against the Beavers.  
Barkley Christensen and Logan Meyer scored all but six of the Bronco points. Christensen poured in 20 and Meyer 17.  
But it was to no avail as the 8-12 Broncos season ended in the play-in game for the seventh time in the last eight years.