“He got a reversal, and he got some back points, but I feel like I dominated the whole match.” “I had more takedowns than him,” Devin said of his opponent. In the state semifinal match, the Snowflake wrestler won with an 11-8 decision to advance into the tournament finals. “I lost to him twice the year before,” Devin said, “but I was feeling confident because I knew he didn’t work has hard as I did during the summer.” In the semifinals, he matched up with Landen Francis of Prescott High, an opponent he had trouble wrestling last year. “I was up like 12-0 before I pinned him, so it wasn’t too hard.”Īs for Gonzalez, he earned two takedowns before pinning the Salpointe Catholic wrestler in the first period. “He wasn’t really wrestling so it took me a while to pin him,” Devin said of Roberts.
“I mean, all my brothers, partners and coaches helped me work hard during the summer.”ĭevin won his first two matches with falls over Edgar Roberts of Estrella Foothills in the first round and Salpointe Catholic’s Orlando Gonzalez in the second. “I felt like I could go undefeated,” he said. Nevertheless, the Snowflake grappler felt that he could close out the season with a state title while keeping his perfect record intact. “We like competing with each other, but he’s the first in my family to win a state title,” he said.ĭevin entered the Arizona Division III state wrestling meet as the only athlete with a spotless record, but he was seeded third in his weight class at 215 pounds.ĭevin said the two wrestlers ahead of him placed higher than him the year before and the Arizona Interscholastic Association took that into consideration. “It’s pretty cool because he never went undefeated in high school,” Devin said of Terrell, who currently wrestles for the Arizona Christian University men’s wrestling team. The younger Kinlicheenie sibling did his older brother one better by finishing the season undefeated with a 49-0 mark. 18, Snowflake sophomore Devin Kinlicheenie etched his name into the family lore, following the footprints of older brother, Terrell, who captured a state title last season with a 53-1 overall record. The Kinlicheenie wrestling family now has two state champions.
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