Stubbs claims his first state wrestling title

The Kanab Cowboys Wrestling team traveled to Richfield on Friday, February 6, to compete in the UHSAA 2A State High School Wrestling Tourna­ment. Kanab entered nine wrestlers in the tourna­ment and ended up with five making it to the podium to receive medals.

Left to right, photos courtesy of Kelly Stubbs:

• Kanab High School Freshman Dylan Stubbs claims state wrestling title.

• Kanab High School wrestlers and their coaches.

• Cinci Treadwell locks down his opponent in his final State Championship tournament. Treadwell capped off an absolutely stellar Senior season with a fifth place finish.

• Ernest Hulet has his opponent from Beaver twisted into a pretzel as he nears victory.

• Dacyn Button with a tight grip on his opponent from South Sevier during round three of the State Championships at the Sevier Valley Center.

• Deagan Allen flips his opponent on his way to a sixth place State finish.

• Cody Stubbs prepares for battle in his first State Tournament of his high school wrestling career.

Kanab Freshman Dylan Stubbs led the way for the Cowboys by achieving his lifetime goal of being a high school state wrestling champion. Stubbs started the tournament with a pin over Rigden Graham from Gunnison, then racked up a 20-1 point tech fall over returning state placer, Rhett Kelly from North Summit. Stubbs faced Kash Wilson from Grand in the semifinals and won a had fought match 10-5 to punch his ticket into the finals against Ridger Benson from Parowan. The evenly contested finals match came down to the very last seconds. Stubbs had built a one-point lead, but was hit with an un­necessary roughness call, which would tie the match at 6-6 with 20 seconds to go. Stubbs finished a three-point double leg takedown with five seconds on the clock to secure the 106 lbs state title. Stubbs was also nominated by the coaches association to receive out­standing wrestler for the 2026 UHSAA 2A State Tournament.

Dylan said he has spent most of his life preparing for this moment. He started wrestling and going to tournaments when he was five years old. He’s spent a lifetime watching his older brothers have success in their wrestling and that has been a huge motivating force for him. Dylan said he has had to put in a lot of extra work beyond regular practices to get to this point but says his goal isn’t met, it has just started and hopes there are more state titles coming. He said he was re­ally nervous to wrestle in the finals but felt confident he could win because he has been training hard for this opportunity and it felt great to win his first high school state title and see all of the hard work pay off.

The Cowboys also cele­brated the success of Sopho­more, Ernie Hulet and Se­nior, Cinci Treadwell, who both had an outstanding tournament. Both wres­tlers lost heart breaking matches in the semis. Cinci had built a demanding 13-1 lead over South Summit’s Bryan Freeman and was three points away from a tech fall victory, but was caught in a desperation move by Freeman that resulted in a pin over Treadwell.

Hulet also lost a close match in the semis to Zack Benson from Beaver 9-7. Both wrestlers were able to wrestle back through the consola­tion bracket and secure fourth place medals, making them both 2x state placers. Junior, Dacyn Button and Sophomore, Deagan Allen also wrestled well and was able to step on the podium to receive sixth place medals.

The Kanab Coaches are super proud of the team this year. It was an extremely young team, with sev­en Freshman making up about half the team. They were amazed with the growth and development they saw from these young wres­tlers and are super excited to see what they will be able to do in the upcoming years.

Final team scores for UHSAA 2A state tour­nament; South Sum­mit 293, Millard 272, Beaver 266, San Juan 134, Duchesne 130, North Summit 110, Kanab 83, Gunnison Valley 63, Enterprise 50, Grand County 46, ALA 38, South Sevier 33, Parowan 33, North Sevier 26, Utah Mili­tary Academy Hillfield 2 and Utah Military Academy Williams 0.