Wyatt Midkiff will keep the streak of Marauders red through his brown hair at least as long as his winning streak lasts.
“It was my girlfriend’s idea,” the 220-pound Mingus Union High School wrestler said after winning his 23rd straight match Saturday, Jan. 3, at the Mile High Challenge. “She thought it would be a good attention-gainer for the [college] coaches.”
The Marauders senior continued his drive to the Division III state championship with the title belt from the Challenge at the Prescott Valley Events Center.
“I wanted that belt,” Midkiff said. “I wanted to continue my undefeated streak, and I did.”
A state runner-up in his weight class last season, Midkiff had four championship wins in his first competitive wrestling tournament in two weeks after being declared out medically with a skin infection.
“I was just really out of shape because I had just gotten cleared,” he said. “I got to practice just one time.
“I weighed under both times, but I was pretty unprepared — no stamina or anything. I just wanted to go so bad that I pushed through.”
Midkiff had enough to pin his first two championship-round opponents, then take the 220-pound Mile High title in a 3-1 decision over Tolleson High School’s Ruben Mendez with eight seconds left despite two episodes of regurgitation in a mat garbage can during the match.
For the full story, please see the Wednesday, Jan. 7, issue of the Cottonwood Journal Extra.
