A handful of area Class 3A wrestlers charged through their opening-round matches at the Colorado State Wrestling Championships at the Pepsi Center in Denver on Thurday.

The winners from Thursday afternoon advanced to the tournament quarterfinals - the second round that begins this morning.

Those who lost their opening-round matches dropped into the consolation bracket with a chance to wrestle back to third place.

Bayfield High School had a pair of wrestlers advance through Thursday's rounds.

Jordan Larsen, one of the top 3A wrestlers at 152 pounds, opened the state tourney with a second-period pin (2:48) of Tyler Toth of Clear Creek. The senior Larsen, 39-3, will wrestle Zach Farber of Buena Vista in the second round. Farber, 32-4, also has a second-period pin on Thursday.

Bayfield's Markus Eckstein, at 189 pounds, also won on Thursday. He defeated Cliff Leonhardt of Yuma 9-2 to advance to tdoay's amtch against Mike Rucker of Buena Vista.

Eckstein, a junior, is 33-14; Rucker, a junior, is 20-16.

Two Ignacio High School wrestlers also won their first-round matches on Thursday.

Freshman Casey Haga, at 112 pounds, pinned Neal Schultz of Coal Ridge (New Castle) at 1:23 of the first period. Haga, 29-7, will go up against CJ Brophy of Yuma today. Brophy (a junior, is 23-13.

Chance Wyatt of the Bobcats won his opening match at 215 pounds. He pinned Rodolfo Gonzalez of Sheridan just 45 seconds into the match.

Wyatt, a sophomore, is 24-7. He will go up against Dustin Frank, a senior from Roosevelt, in today's second round. Frank is 23-4 after pinning his opponent on Thursday.

Other area 3A state qualifiers dropped their opening matches.

At 125 pounds, Bayfield's Trevor Huntsman dropped a 13-12 heartbreaker to Elijah Watkins of The Pinnacle.

At 135, Bayfield's Ty Conrad lost a close 8-6 decision to Ronnie Blea of Greeley University.

At 140, Ignacio's Raudel Lucero lost to Cole Kembel of Brush 13-1 on Thursday, and Bayfield's Taylor Swanemyr lost 10-0 to Mike Smith of Eaton.

Austin Thorne of Bayfield, wrestling at 145, lost 5-4 to Jared Cass of Platte Valley (Kersey) in the opening round.

At 160 pounds, Bayfield's Clarence Radcliff was pinned by Rod Garrett of Middle Park at 3:49.

And Ignacio's Abel Velasquez, wrestling at 189, lost by pin to David Clark of Platte Valley on Thursday.

In team scoring, defending state champion Roosevelt leads after the first day with 37 points. Gunnison is second with 24.

Centauri of the Intermountain League is third with 23. Florence is next with 22.5.

Ignacio scored eight points on Thursday; Bayfield totaled six.

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