“That’s Palmer,”\u009d the wrestler said to his buddy, nodding his head in awe.<\/p>\n
Those days are behind Palmer now ” let’s just say people know him.<\/p>\n
Palmer has taken the 4A heavyweight division by storm this season, taking a 33-1 record all the way up the ranks to sit alone atop the rankings. Tonight, he hopes to cap it off with a state title.<\/p>\n
“I told myself at the beginning, I’m doing this for my brother,”\u009d said Palmer, who pinned Ranum’s previously undefeated Dominick Hastings in the semifinals Friday. “He was a wrestler, and I told myself I’m going to win a state title for him.”\u009d<\/p>\n
Casey Palmer was riding in the passenger seat of his girlfriend’s car about three years ago in Abilene, Kan., when a drunk driver flew through a stop sign and broadsided the vehicle. Casey hit his head, and after six hours of surgery, he died at the hospital.<\/p>\n
“He’s my motivation before every match,”\u009d Cody Palmer said. “I’m wrestling for my brother.”\u009d<\/p>\n
The fact that Palmer is wrestling at all is big news.<\/p>\n
After tearing through junior high as a wrestler ” pinning every opponent his eighth-grade year ” Palmer opted not to wrestle his freshman or sophomore years.<\/p>\n
“He’d be a multiple state champion if he wrestled all four years for me,”\u009d Tigers coach Duff Seaney said. “Lord knows I asked him every chance I got.”\u009d<\/p>\n
Palmer spent last year in Kansas with his father, and after Abilene’s heavyweight wrestler went down to injury, the coaches talked Palmer into coming out.<\/p>\n
“I wrestled for about three weeks and qualified for state,”\u009d said Palmer, who also won a power-lifting com-petition while in Kansas. “I should have won, but I took third.”\u009d<\/p>\n
Palmer might prefer football to wrestling ” “Football’s my life,”\u009d he says ” but the Ca\u00c3\u00b1on senior has himself in prime position to be king of wrestling. That has him all smiles.<\/p>\n
No football game will showcase Palmer like tonight’s finals will, though. A sold-out Pepsi Center with nearly 20,000 roaring fans, coupled with countless flashbulbs around the arena, most find themselves intimidated when the time finally rolls around.<\/p>\n
Not Palmer.<\/p>\n
“It will probably just give me more of an edge,”\u009d Palmer said. “Of course, I’m ready.”\u009d<\/p>\n
Palmer faces Northridge’s Tim Saucedo, who Palmer has already pinned this season, in tonight’s finals.<\/p>\n
STILL CHASING: Hopeful seniors Matt Garoutte and Eric Brown both lost their quarterfinal matches Friday and both came back with a win in the second round of consolations.<\/p>\n
Fueled with aggression from his previous loss, Garoutte pinned Pine Creek’s John Bissell in 3:16 in the 130-pound quarterfinals.<\/p>\n
“That was a revenge match for me,”\u009d Garoutte said. “He beat me earlier in the year. I was beating him, and he pinned me. He almost did it again.”\u009d<\/p>\n
Now, Garoutte’s focused on shooting for third place.<\/p>\n
“The loss was disappointing, but it’s behind me now,”\u009d Garoutte said. “I’m approaching it like every match is my last, because it could be.”\u009d<\/p>\n
Brown had a tremendous scare to advance to today’s 152-pound third round, which begins at 12:30 p.m.<\/p>\n
Down 8-5 to Mesa Ridge’s Jarrod Purvis with less than a minute left, Brown got a reversal and two back points to take the lead for good.<\/p>\n
“I wasn’t expecting that,”\u009d Brown said. “I’ve beaten him before. I was definitely scared, but I said, ‘Go, go, go. Don’t quit.’ I’m just happy to get the win.”\u009d<\/p>\n
Seaney said Garoutte and Brown have a good shot at placing.<\/p>\n
“They’re both just one win away,”\u009d Seaney said. “That would be great for both of them, and I like both of their chances.”\u009d<\/p>\n
MICHAUD BIDS FAREWELL: Tigers senior Tim Michaud ended a career that began when he was 10 years old wrestling for Seaney. Michaud lost his second-round consolations match to Harrison’s Tony Cabello on Friday.<\/p>\n
“Tim’s a great kid,”\u009d Seaney said. “He’s another kid I’ve taught for so long. It’s sad to see him go.”\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Justin Williams The Daily Record DENVER ” Cody Palmer walked through the tunnel, preparing for his opening-round match Thursday, and a fellow state qualifier’s eyes locked onto the Ca\u00c3\u00b1on City heavyweight wrestler. “That’s Palmer,”\u009d the wrestler said to his buddy, nodding his head in awe. Those days are behind Palmer now ” let’s just say […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wrestling"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":6}},"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2B7Di-wy","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2018\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}