How CHSAA wrestlers who finished runner-up last year fueled themselves back into the finals

The tableau of defeat burned in Kate Doughty’s mind for a whole year.

In last season’s 130-pound finals, the Canon City junior was pinned in the first period by Pomona superstar Persaeus Gomez, who became the first four-time state champion in CHSAA girls wrestling history with the win.

“I distinctly remember the feeling of the ref slapping the mat, and then hearing the crowd go wild for her,” Doughty said. “That was the most humbling thing because it was so exciting to get into the finals, and then to lose the way I did — which was pretty quickly — I wanted to remember how that felt so I wouldn’t repeat that.”

The image of herself getting pinned — captured by dozens of media outlets and plastered far and wide across the internet — became seared into Doughty’s memory.

Like anyone who has lost in the biggest match on CHSAA’s biggest stage, it served as motivation for the work that needed to be done to climb the mountain again this year — and this time, finish the job.

“I was getting a lot of media attention that I didn’t necessarily want with her being the first four-timer,” Doughty said. “Every time you’d see a picture of Persaeus winning her fourth title, you’d see me on my back. So that was a wake-up call for me.

“… Every time my training was getting hard, (that photo) flashed in my mind, and I would be like, ‘Uh, I am not going to be that girl again.'”

In the time since, Doughty’s career has continued to trend up.

She is now nationally ranked by FloWrestling at No. 20 at 135 pounds. And she capitalized on a return trip to the finals on Saturday, beating Severance senior Faith Vondy 9-3 to win the Class 4A girls 135-pound title and cap a perfect 34-0 season.

Doughty’s sacrifices to get the gold included driving an hour to Colorado Springs to practice with her club teams each day, on top of practices with Canon City. There were plenty of early mornings as she routinely got up around 5 a.m. to lift weights and grapple with her brother Jack in the family garage. The space is only partially heated, usually hovering around 40 degrees in the winter.

“It’s just a little chilly,” Doughty cracked. “But it was all worth it to get back here.”

Jack Doughty also positioned himself to avenge a finals loss from last year, turning a defeat at 175 pounds into a championship appearance at 190 pounds. With the siblings’ return trip to the finals, last year’s mostly quiet ride home from Denver seems like an eternity ago.

“Jack is my biggest fan, and also my biggest critic,” Kate said. “It can be challenging listening to him sometimes, because he’s my older brother, be really does have a lot of good knowledge that I’ve definitely benefited from. I hope he would say the same about me and that we leaned on each other to get past (last year’s finals defeats).”

Medal on a doorknob

While a photo underscored Doughty’s pain from 2024, Jonathan Montes Gonzales hung his own brutal reminder on the doorknob to his bedroom.

That’s where the Grandview junior placed his second-place medal from last year. Every time he left his room, every time he looked at the door from his bed, he was taken back to being pinned in the Class 5A 150-pound finals of the 2024 state tournament by Regis Jesuit’s Garrett Reece.

“Every time I turned that doorknob, I had to relive that memory,” Montes Gonzales said. “That lit a fire under me because I would get home from practice, see the medal, and realize I had to do more work.

“Sometimes I would sit down and watch some film before I got ready for bed. Sometimes I was overweight, and I had to go to the gym. Sometimes, I wouldn’t want to get up in the morning (to lift weights), but seeing that medal got me out of bed. It made me more dedicated. It forced myself to do things that I didn’t want to do, or might not have done.”

The doorknob trick nearly paid off.

Montes Gonzales returned to the 150 finals on Saturday at Ball Arena, but fell in a 6-5 nailbiter to Arvada West senior Auston Eudaly. Montes Gonzales faced a 6-3 deficit entering the final period. Eudaly chose bottom, then stalled out for two minutes, resulting in two points for Montes Gonzales, who eventually ran out of time.

But hanging that medal was only part of the Grandview star’s plan to ensure a return trip to the finals.

A few weeks after last year’s tournament, Montes Gonzales had an epiphany while talking with his coach, Ryan Budd. Reese pledged to wrestle for Maryland after beating him, and Montes Gonzales “didn’t want to be a nobody anymore.” He wanted the gold and the college commitment, just like Reese.

“(Budd) was like, ‘You know what Montes? I know you might feel satisfied, but I always went into that tournament thinking I was going to win and I always lost. I thought I was satisfied with that, until I got older. Don’t let that be you,’” Montes Gonzales recalled.

“… Going into that match, my mentality was that I was satisfied with what I had done. But later, it just clicked that second wasn’t satisfying enough.”

Montes Gonzales took that dedication to his goal to extremes in the six weeks leading up to the state tournament. After an 0-2 showing at the prestigious Doc Buchanan Wrestling Invitational in early January, he returned home and kicked his training into high gear.

On Sundays when Grandview didn’t have practice, Montes Gonzales got up early and ran up and down Green Mountain. After that, he worked outside in the cold on semis for his family’s trucking company. It was a two-fold approach to what was supposed to be an off-day to address his conditioning and his mental toughness.

And while his quest for CHSAA gold will continue into his senior year, he’s still revising his satisfaction scale.

“I don’t want to be satisfied with just being a state champion,” he said. “Going to Reno (Tournament of Champions) and Doc B, and not placing, that showed me the state tournament is important but that I still have bigger goals to achieve (beyond a CHSAA title).”

Benefits of tough love

Roosevelt’s Chris LaLonde echoed Doughty’s sentiment that his partners in the room were critical in helping the junior back to the finals.

LaLonde was runner-up last year at Class 4A 138 pounds, falling in double overtime. But the 2023 state champion rallied this year, winning the Class 4A 144 finals 4-0 over Skyline senior Tobias Pinson for his second CHSAA gold.

As he explained, he might not have done it without the tough love he requested from the Rough Riders coaches.

“They would shout at me things like, ‘Do you want to lose in overtime again?!’” LaLonde said. “It brought back the moment in my mind, and made me practice a lot harder. A lot of the times, it made me mad, but it pushed me. I never took an easy day, because I’ve come to understand how that will come back to bite you.”

LaLonde said the tough love was necessary after he was “a lot less disciplined” during his sophomore season.

“I was riding the high off my sophomore year, and I kind of thought I was untouchable — which is never a good attitude to have,” LaLonde said. “This season, I came into it with a way more disciplined attitude that I needed to go out and beat everybody. But I also understood no one was lesser than me.”

Revised mental approach

Getting back to the finals after losing there also requires an outlook recalibration.

Wray senior Casey Midcap, runner-up last season in Class 2A 165 pounds, returned to the finals this year for a matchup at 157 pounds against North Fork senior Charlie Miller.

He said that entering last season’s Parade of Champions, his thought process was focused too much on negative outcomes. After flipping his thinking this year to a loose, no-regrets approach, Midcap got out of his own head for this year’s finals.

“The kid I lost to last year, I lost to three times earlier in the year and I walked in there thinking, ‘You know, I’m probably going to get beat,’” Midcap said. “This year, I’m letting everything go, being free in my approach, and just going out there and wrestling. Something’s going to happen — you’re either going to win or lose, and life will go on — but you can’t think too much out there. The second you start thinking, you stop taking shots, you get pinned.”

Midcap lost Saturday night in a 16-14 barn burner to North Fork senior Charlie Miller.

Resurrection Christian’s Samuel Stockton, who fell in triple overtime in the Class 3A 215-pound finals last year, also changed his thinking to make the heavyweight finals on Saturday.

He and his training partner Isaiah Johnson — who made the 215-pound finals after losing at 190 last year — breathed positivity into each other in the room.

And most importantly, they both constantly reminded each other of why they wear a singlet.

“We haven’t talked a ton about the possibility of losing,” Stockton said. “We tell each other to go out and win it. And to have fun. If you’re having fun, you’re going to wrestle well.

“This whole year, I’ve been focused on having fun. It’s a sport, it’s not my life. It’s so important to keep that perspective, and that’s fueled me back (to the finals).”

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