The fact Eaton had three individual champs after Saturday’s finals at Denver’s Ball Arena says plenty about the Reds’ run to another Class 3A boys wrestling team championship.
But, the fact Eaton had that title clinched before the finals even began perhaps says even more.
There is no denying the Reds’ trio of individual state champions were heavy contributors to Eaton’s 149 points and its fourth team title this decade.
But, according to everyone from Reds coach Tony Mustari to the three wrestlers who won those individual titles — senior Blake Hawkins, junior Paxton Pettinger and freshman Parker Wickam — Eaton’s five other state qualifiers, especially those who battled through the consolation bracket, were just as instrumental.
Eaton's Parker Wickam wrestles with Bennett's Caycen Scholz during the class 3A 132-pound final at the State Wrestling Championship in Denver on Saturday, Feb. 21, 2026. (Brice Tucker/Staff Photographer)“Just resilience,” Mustari said. “You have guys, seniors, who didn’t reach the ultimate goal of making it to the finals. But, they understood what their job needed to be, and they were resilient. They put their shoes back on, stepped back out on the mat and kept grinding.”
The Reds scored 29.5 more points than their top challenger, Alamosa (119.5).
Thanks to the vast contributions Eaton received throughout its roster, the Reds led what was expected to be a much tighter team race wire-to-wire.
Eaton fan Finley Miller, right, cheers on Eaton's Paxton Pettinger with other fans during the class 3A 165-pound final at the State Wrestling Championship at Ball Arena in Denver on Saturday, Feb. 21, 2026. (Brice Tucker/Staff Photographer)They built a 41-point advantage after Day 1 of the three-day state tournament and remained ahead by 14 points after Day 2.
Eaton came out the gate on fire Thursday and never gave the rest of the field much of an opportunity to close the gap.
“Honestly, I wasn’t expecting the Thursday that we had,” Mustari said. “That was everything a coach hopes for. They came out and put 10 pins on the board, a couple technical falls, and you jump out to a 40-pont lead. That’s making a statement.”
To engineer a performance like what the Reds had this past weekend, sacrifice and perseverance are necessities.
A CHSAA referee watches a wrestling match between Eaton's Parker Wickam and Bennett's Caycen Scholz during the class 3A 132-pound final at the State Wrestling Championship in Denver on Saturday, Feb. 21, 2026. (Brice Tucker/Staff Photographer)Few on Eaton’s gritty roster sacrificed and persevered more than did Wickam (37-3), the Reds’ uber-talented freshman.
Wickam sprained the ulnar collateral ligament in his elbow during a regional tournament the week before the state tournament. The injury was bad enough for he and his coaches to briefly consider having Wickam medically forfeit his regional finals match with hopes he would be a little less banged up for state.
Ultimately, Wickam would have none of it.
He persevered through the rest of regionals and on into state. The arm actually felt better throughout the three-day state tournament, as he and his teammates inched closer and closer to securing state titles.
Eaton's Parker Wickam wrestles with Bennett's Caycen Scholz during the class 3A 132-pound final at the State Wrestling Championship in Denver on Saturday, Feb. 21, 2026. (Brice Tucker/Staff Photographer)“I knew that I had to push through, there was no other option,” Wickam said. “I pushed through and won my region with a lot of tough guys in it. So, I knew if I could do that, I could come here and wrestle tough at state with my hurt elbow.”
Wickam secured his individual title via an 8-2 decision in the 132-pound finals against Bennett senior Caycen Scholz (51-13).
Pettinger’s title match was a bit more tense.
His match against Brush senior Austin Ley (53-4) was scoreless through two periods.
Eaton's Paxton Pettinger wrestles with Brush's Austin Ley during the class 3A 165-pound final at the State Wrestling Championship at Ball Arena in Denver on Saturday, Feb. 21, 2026. (Brice Tucker/Staff Photographer)With 36 seconds left, he scored on a reversal to go up 2-0, ultimately winning 2-1 to cap a 40-5 season.
By the time Pettinger stepped on the mat, for the last weight class of the night, Hawkins and Wickam had already won their individual titles.
So, even though Eaton had secured its team title hours earlier, Pettinger continued to feed off his teammates, much in the same way the Reds’ entire eight-wrestler state tournament roster fed off each other the entire weekend.
“I was like, ‘Winning is contagious. I’ve got to go out there for my team and do this for my community but most important, for myself,'” said Pettinger, who was a state runner-up a year earlier. “Nobody else is going to do the work for me. With all the hard work I’ve done, I just had to go out there and win.”
Bennett's Caycen Scholz wrestles with Eaton's Parker Wickam during the class 3A 132-pound final at the State Wrestling Championship at Ball Arena in Denver on Saturday, Feb. 21, 2026. (Brice Tucker/Staff Photographer)Wickam and Pettinger certainly weren’t the only wrestlers on Eaton’s team to sacrifice and persevere while helping lead the Reds to a team title.
Perhaps no one on the team endured more than did Hawkins en route to a team and individual title Saturday.
Hawkins (45-9) defeated Fort Lupton sophomore Isaiah Rodriguez (38-12) in the 120 finals Saturday. It was Hawkins’ second consecutive individual title to end his high school wrestling career.
Long before the state tournament, Hawkins worked tirelessly to rehab a tear in the lateral collateral ligament in his knee.
And, as recently as a handful of days before the state tournament, his odds of repeating might have appeared a bit dire to everyone but Hawkins himself.
Eaton's Parker Wickam is declared the winner of the class 3A 132-pound final at the State Wrestling Championship at Ball Arena in Denver on Saturday, Feb. 21, 2026. (Brice Tucker/Staff Photographer)The week before the state tournament, Hawkins — a favorite in his weight class all season long — slipped up in his regional tournament final to place second.
That resulted in a less-than-favorite seeding in his bracket at state.
Then, he came down with a staph infection on Monday, on top of an elbow injury he had also been battling.
To top it all off, he had to deal with the heartache and potential distraction of knowing his sister was in the hospital all week with the flu.
There was no shortage of reasons for Hawkins to say this simply just wasn’t his year.
But when he hit the mat this past week, he made no excuses.
He responded to all of those potential roadblocks standing in between him and his quest to be a multi-time state champion by not surrendering a single point to any of his four opponents in the state tournament.
“I didn’t want to waste the opportunity,” Hawkins told Coloradopreps.com. “Pure domination this year. This was the goal. Talking to my dad and my coaches, I knew I was the best guy.”
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