Harrisburg's Brody Buzzard takes down Siuslaw's Jacob Mann during Friday's 3A boys wrestling finals at Memorial Coliseum.

PORTLAND -- Harrisburg senior Brody Buzzard closed the book on a remarkable high school wrestling career on Friday night.

And, oh, what an ending.

Buzzard became Oregon’s newest four-time individual state champion and helped lead the Eagles to the 3A boys team title during Friday’s finals of the OSAA/OnPoint Community Credit Union state championships at Portland’s Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

“Probably one of the most emotional endings ever,” Buzzard said. “I just look back at all the hard work and I was ready for that final match. It’s been one heckuva long journey. I can’t believe it. What an achievement.

“It’s just a reflection of how much hard work I’ve put into this.”

Buzzard, a senior at Marist Catholic High School in Eugene who wrestles for Harrisburg, is the second Eagles wrestler to win four state titles. Dax Bennett was the first, winning titles in four different weight classes (132, 152, 170, and 180) from 2016 to 2019.

Buzzard’s titles also came in four different weight classes — 145 as a freshman, 165 as a sophomore, 175 as a junior, and 215 as a senior. He also said it wasn’t long after winning that first title as a freshman that he got the idea in his head that four in a row was possible.

“Freshman year was one of the hardest years and I earned that title,” Buzzard said. “I felt like nobody else had put the work in that I did and I just feel like I deserved it.

“This year was a little bit different, just because I had a big target on my back. A lot of people were coming for me and I felt like people were setting goals and had my name on their chalkboard like, ‘I’m going to come after him.’

“But it all comes down to the extra work you put in, how much hard work you put in, how much effort … and that really paid off.”

Buzzard pinned each of his first three opponents in the first round at this year’s tournament. He then won by a 10-4 decision over Siuslaw senior Jacob Mann in Friday’s 215 final.

The final wasn’t all that exciting. Buzzard got the initial takedown for an early 3-0 lead. Then he got another takedown in the second round that pushed his lead to 6-2. And, finally, he scored an escape and another takedown in the third period that put the match out of reach.

“I knew (Mann) was going to be coming out hard, coming out swinging,” Buzzard said. “But I was loose, I was ready. I came and defended, re-attacked, got on my offense, scored more points than him, and that’s all that matters — got the fourth title.”

Buzzard is looking forward to playing football next fall at Western Oregon University in Monmouth. And while he didn’t rule out a possible return to the wrestling mat at some point, Friday’s final might have been his farewell to the sport.

“To finish it out like that, it’s unbelievable,” Harrisburg coach Desmond Bennett said. “That kid, he’s just your prototypical student-athlete — polite, 4.0 student, treats everybody right, and works harder than anybody I’ve ever coached. So, he deserves this moment. I couldn’t be more proud of him.

“He’s our quiet leader. I point to him and I say, ‘Just be like Brody.’ It kind of embarrasses him, but I say, ‘Be like him. Follow his lead. Follow his example.’ He’s just been a dream to coach.”

As for the team race, Buzzard played a significant role in the Harrisburg win, but he also had a lot of help.

Banks had the first-day lead in the team race with 109 points, but the Braves faded out of contention when only two of their eight wrestlers in the semifinals advanced to the finals.

Meanwhile, Harrisburg and Nyssa put five wrestlers each into the finals, turning the team race into a two-way battle that saw Harrisburg holding a 188-187 lead with only one match left for each team — top-seeded Luke Baker at 157 for Nyssa and Buzzard at 215 for Harrisburg.

In the 157 final, Glide’s Elijah Hatfield spoiled Nyssa’s team title hopes when he won by an 8-3 decision over Baker and completed his own perfect 34-0 season.

Buzzard’s win in the 215 final pushed Harrisburg’s final team total to 192 points, while Nyssa (187), Banks (164), and Burns (150) went home with the other trophies.

Harrisburg scored another individual title with Andrei Donyri at 126, while the three other Eagles in the finals — Brandon Henderson at 106, Johnson Henderson at 132, and Trayson Truesdell at 138 — each finished second.  

The Eagles also scored crucial third-place points from Braxton Henager at 126, Levi Conley at 138, and Jackson Peterman at 144, helping secure their second team title in three seasons.

“It was such a team win,” said Bennett, whose team finished as the runner-up to Burns at last year’s tournament. “You win by a few points, it has to be a team win. It was such a great win for these kids to have. 

“We’ve had an up and down season. We’ve dealt with a lot of stuff that people don’t know about and I think we’re closer because of it. I think these kids, I think they really believe in themselves, they believe in each other, and they believe in the coaches, and the parents, and the biggest rooting section you’ll see this weekend by any school. I guarantee it.”

Bennett said the one major keys in the team win was Donyri's come-from-behind, 7-6 win over Thomas Winn of Burns in Friday’s semifinals.

“Andrei has a flair for the dramatic,” Bennett said. “He got that win with a takedown at the buzzer and that really got the momentum going.”

He also singled out extraordinary performances by Conley and Henager, who each lost their opening match of the tournament and then went undefeated in four consecutive consolation matches to finish third.

“The heart that they have to have to battle like that,” Bennett said. “Those are the ones that are key.”

Nyssa finished with three individual champions — Jose Jimenez at 106, Diesel Johnson at 113, and Adan De La Fuente at 120 — and matched their highest team finish since 2019 when they were second to La Pine.

4A

Sweet Home’s Jesse Landtroop became a three-time state champion Friday, leading the Huskies to their 10th team title and eighth under coach Steve Thorpe.

The Huskies took most of the suspense out of the team race when they qualified seven wrestlers into the finals.

The bad news: Landtroop, the 126-pound junior, was the only one to win in the finals. 

The other six — Cody Sieminski at 106, Keegan Jefferson at 113, returning champion Riley Vaughan at 120, returning champion Tytus Hardee at 132, returning champion Dillan Davis at 144, and Luke Rose at 175 — all finished second.

Sweet Home also had one third-place finisher, three fourths, one fifth, and a sixth — a total of 13 wrestlers on the podium — and finished with 283 points to runner-up Pendleton’s 202.

La Grande finished third with 197 points, followed by Cascade with 149.5.

“I’m incredibly proud of our kids and what they accomplished,” Thorpe said. “To come in and place 13, to put seven boys into the finals, and to walk away more than 80 points better than the rest of the teams, that shows some dominance.

“I would have liked the finals to go better, but this is a special group. A bunch of these kids, I’ve had the pleasure of hauling them around and coaching them since they were 4 and 5 years old in our mat club.”

Landtroop stole the spotlight in the 126 final against La Grande’s Deegan Nelson, trading three-point takedowns for one-point escapes before coming away with a 21-6 technical fall 17 seconds into the third period.

“For Jesse to get No. 3 was incredible,” Thorpe said. “But this program is a very special place to be. We’re already planning our practices next week. We’re going back to work, because if you’re satisfied, you don’t get better. And we’re not satisfied.

Thorpe gave a special shoutout to 132-pound junior Cael Stevenson, who won four of his first five matches before falling to top-seeded Bragen Anderson of La Grande in Friday’s third-place match.

“Cael wrestled as good as anybody,” Thorpe said. “But we entered 20 kids into this tournament and 19 of them scored points. That’s impressive. Nineteen scored points. And when you’re doing that, that’s how you find yourself on podiums and going home with blue trophies, so it’s pretty darn cool.

“Like I said, this is a special group. We had some disappointments, but we also had some exhilaration. God is good and God’s been good to this group and to me. So, I’m very proud of what we accomplished, but we’re coming back at it in ’27, too.”

La Grande senior Tommy Belding closed out his high school career as a three-time champion after he scored a 14-2 major decision over Seaside’s Brayden Cooley in the 157-pound final.

2A/1A

The Culver Bulldogs were at it again on Friday night, running away with another 2A/1A wrestling team title.

This one was OSAA team title No. 15.

Culver’s Rhett Arsenault at 106, Max Dickson at 175, and Coby Holmes at 215 each won individual titles and four others finished second, leading the Bulldogs to a lopsided 189-99 team win Friday at Portland’s Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

Oakridge finished third with 75.5 points, and Irrigon was fourth with 72.

“I”m just beyond grateful and humbled when I think about how long I’ve been here and the good times we’ve had,” Culver coach J.D. Alley said. “I was getting ready to leave my hotel room this morning to get on the bus, I had my Pandora on, and it started playing Joe Walsh and ‘Life’s Been Good to Me.’

“I thought, ‘That’s pretty fitting.’“

It also helps when your team shows up with 13 wrestlers and pushes 10 of them into the semifinals, which is more wrestlers than any of the other contenders brought.

“Obviously it was our tournament to lose and our kids wrestled well this morning,” Alley said. “We had two No. 1 seeds coming into this and we wound up with three champs, so I’d say that was good. We had a couple kids who would want a redo on their finals, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles sometimes.”

Dickson contributed to the night’s highlights when he overpowered Waldport’s Gabriel Dooley 9-2 to clinch top honors in the 175-pound weight class.

“I’ve been putting a lot of work in,” Dickson said. “I’ve been telling myself every morning, ‘I will become a state champion,’ and just sort of working toward this happening every single day.”

All the scoring in the final came in the first two rounds, Dickson getting a takedown, Doyle an escape, Dickson a takedown, Dooley an escape, and, finally, Dickson another takedown. Both wrestlers finished on their feet in a scoreless third period.

“I feel like I could have done better, but I was trying to wrestle cautiously,” Dickson said. “That guy (Dooley) felt like a thrower. He was digging his under-hooks and I didn’t want to set myself up in stupid positions and lose the match because I did something stupid.”

Alley was impressed with what he saw from Dickson this season, especially the way he persevered through a potentially serious knee injury a few weeks ago that almost derailed his season.

“The first of February, he was in a pile of tears,” Alley said. “We had to learn a different way to wrestle and his knee is still not very well. We haven’t ruled out surgery on some things, but he has a very high wrestling IQ and is probably the most passionate kid about wrestling on my team.

“Tonight, he just found a way to win.”

Among Friday’s other highlights, James Conn of Illinois Valley became a three-time state champion after he scored a 13-1 major decision over Irrigon’s Anthony Vasquez in the 113-pound final. Conn’s other titles came at 120 as a junior and 106 as a sophomore. He placed second at 106 as a freshman.

Grant Union’s Taylor Parsons also became a three-time champion when he pinned Culver’s Ezra Sanabria to clinch the 132 final. Parsons, a senior, placed second at 126 as a junior, while winning titles at 126 as a freshman and sophomore.

4A/3A/2A/1A girls

The La Grande Tigers clinched their third consecutive 4A/3A/2A/1A girls wrestling state team title on Friday night and they did it the hard way — without a single individual champion.

It was the same formula La Grande followed a year ago: qualify more wrestlers for the tournament than any other team, advance a bunch through the first two rounds, stumble in the semifinals, and do just enouigh in the consolation rounds to hold off any serious challengers.

This time, the Tigers advanced six of their 10 qualifiers into semifinals, but only one — Madison Armstrong at 190 — made it to the finals, and she ended up finishing second.

Six others earned spots on the podium for La Grande as Sydnee Azure finished third at 125, Eilie May was third at 100, Rhiley Lees placed fourth at 110, Emmeline Livingston took fourth at 130, Carleigh Radke was fifth at 105, and Avery Robinson was sixth at 120.

When all the points were added together, La Grande finished with 132 points, followed by Harrisburg (122), Oakridge (120.5), and Banks (88).

Maybe that’s not the formula La Grande coach Rusty Gulzow would typically recommend to any team with championship aspirations, but the Tigers have made it work two years in a row.

“First of all, I’m just extremely proud of these girls,” Gulzow said. “They amaze me every day. We have things that are setbacks and they’re able to respond, and I think that means more to me than just sailing through and always having it be easy.

“We had a really, really rough semifinal round and lost five out of six, but they were able to keep their heads up and say, ‘There’s another round and we’re going to get back in.’ And they did that and they were very successful in that round and the placing rounds.”

It helped that La Grande emerged from the first day with an 83-50 lead over Harrisburg.

And despite some rough bumps Friday, the Tigers’ 132 points set a new tournament record, breaking the previous record of 102 that they set two years ago.

“Each year, it’s different,” Gulzow said. “We had a title with 102 points. We had a title with 98 points. We kind of felt like we had to put up 80 points on the first day to build enough of a wall. And it’s different for each team. Our paths are all different.

“It’s just a testament to these girls that they’re able to keep going and they never say it’s over. And they responded to pressure that came their way.”

Among the highlights in Friday’s finals:

In the 100-pound final, Harrisburg sophomore Eden Ridgley won by a 3-2 decision over defending champion Lorien Bowns of Nyssa, who was denied a potential go-ahead takedown as time expired.

At 110, Harrisburg’s Paxton Steele pinned Oakridge’s Ellie Walters with 31 seconds remaining in the first round to cap a 57-1 second and clinch her second state title in three seasons.

At 115, defending champion Hadley Gunderson of Burns won by a 4-3 decision over Oakridge’s Vanessa Keller, spoiling Keller’s bid to become a four-time state champion.

At 125, Sweet Home senior Bailey Chafin won by a 7-2 decision over Oakridge’s Victoria Keller to become a three-time champion, having previously won titles at 125 as a freshman and sophomore.