De’Alcapon Veazy is ready to put Ball Arena on notice.
The Ponderosa senior makes his CHSAA state tournament debut this week in Denver, where the Michigan commit is intent on adding the one significant title that’s missing from his lengthy wrestling resume: High school state champion.
Veazy spent his first two seasons at Fort Wayne Snider (Indiana), where he took fourth at state as a freshman and runner-up as a sophomore. Then, as a junior at Ponderosa, Veazy was ruled ineligible for varsity competition by CHSAA.
“I believe in myself enough where I can confidently say I’m going to go out there and get the job done,” said Veazy, the top-seeded wrestler at 190 pounds. “And to do it with a team that could potentially win it all, that feels even better.
“I’m coming over there and I want to pin everybody.”
Veazy’s dominated this season en route to a 35-4 record. His only losses came at prestigious national tournaments, where he placed third at both Doc Buchanan and the Reno Tournament of Champions, and fifth at Ironman. Of the 18-year-old’s in-state matches, all but one of his wins came via pin.
That dominance makes him the centerpiece of Ponderosa’s hopes to dethrone the Pomona wrestling dynasty. While the Mustangs bring 13 to state, the Panthers qualified all 14 of their wrestlers. They’ve won six Class 5A titles in a row, and eight of the last nine, while Ponderosa’s been runner-up four years running.
Fifth-year Ponderosa coach Jarion Beets believes his team has the firepower to make a run at Pomona, with some help from other top 5A teams such as Grandview and Pine Creek. At the start of Tuesday’s practice, Beets put his team’s last three second-place trophies on the center of the mat and then had his wrestlers lie down on their backs in the dark, eyes closed, to visualize that upset.
“Picture that opponent, it doesn’t matter who it is, we put ’em away,” Beets told his team. “This is where we make the jump. We’re used to the bright lights, we’ve been to every big tournament there is in this country.
“Second place is not in our memory, it’s not in our future, and all we see is gold.”
For Veazy, the opportunity to lead Ponderosa to an upset comes after his junior season was derailed. Montgomery and Angelia Osborn, a Franktown couple who had two sons attend Ponderosa, became his legal guardians when Veazy moved to Colorado after his sophomore year. The wrestler was originally cleared by CHSAA for varsity participation.
But then an anonymous tip sent to the association with a picture of Beets and Veazy together at a national tournament led to a reversal of that decision. That photo was from the Elite 8 Duals in Atlanta where Beets was the coach and Veazy was one of the wrestlers on Beets’ all-star team, the Black Mambas.
Beets and Ponderosa appealed CHSAA’s decision but to no avail.
“It wasn’t that he made the move for me, like how they described it as moving for a club coach,” Beets said. “I was never his club coach. It was an all-star team with wrestlers from around the county, and that team didn’t have regular practices or a facility. But (my relationship to Veazy) was portrayed that way. … I’m glad he stuck it out.”
Veazy’s dad, Eric Veazy, said there were multiple reasons behind sending De’Alcapon to Colorado.
“It was about putting him in a better environment and keeping him focused because he obviously has a major gift, and we wanted to develop and maximize his skill through high school,” said Eric Veazy, who, along with De’Alcapon’s mom, Skye Grigsby, will be at Ball Arena this week as their son goes for his first state title.
“We also didn’t want to take the risk of continuing to keep him around people who didn’t have like minds as much, and take the risk of putting his dreams and goals in jeopardy by pulling him in a different direction.”
Veazy made the most of his ineligibility last year. He went undefeated on JV and put up 108 points over five matches in the JV state tournament. To push himself, he wrestled in a handful of college open tournaments, including placing second at 184 pounds in the Loras College Open in Iowa.
“It was the same mission, even though I couldn’t wrestle in high school duals or meets,” Veazy said. “Still working, getting better in the room, and I feel like it was better for me to not wrestle high school, so I got to see what the college-level competition was like before I even get there. It was a blessing in disguise.”
While Ponderosa lost its other top two wrestlers to transfer this past offseason, Veazy chose to stay and finish his prep career at Ponderosa.
Nebraska commit Tyler Eise, last year’s 5A Most Outstanding Wrestler, moved to California for his senior year following consecutive undefeated seasons. And Cornell commit Tommy Verrette, who won titles as a freshman and sophomore with the Mustangs, moved to Oklahoma.
Had Eise and Verrette stuck around Parker, the Mustangs could’ve been a favorite to dethrone Pomona.
“They both won the tournament the last couple of years in pretty dominant fashion, so I think they wanted to do something more,” Beets said. “There’s always woulda, coulda, shouldas, but in my mind, (those departures) set someone else up on my team to be the guy. At the end of the day the guys who want to be here are here.”
And Beets has confidence in the guys who are here.
Beyond Veazy, Mikey Lopez seeks another title at 144 after winning last year at 126. Ponderosa also boasts 113-pounder Silas Gomez (a Pomona transfer who sat out from CHSAA competition last season), 132-pounder Jaylen Burge (runner-up at the same weight), 150-pounder Dominic Sanchez (fourth at 157) and 157-pounder DJ Wince (third at 150). They also have potential for points in the upper weights in 215-pounder Bryson Tidwell and heavyweight Wyatt Buehler, a scratch golfer who is only in his second year in the sport.
Beets said Veazy has been a leader in the room — a trait that carried over from football season when he was Ponderosa’s star running back and the Class 4A Metro League offensive player of the year.
Veazy finished the season with 1,271 yards rushing and 18 TDs, but Mustangs football coach Jaron Cohen said it wasn’t the stats that stood out most for “the best running back I’ve ever coached.”
“One game, I think he went out of bounds on purpose to get another senior his only career TD,” Cohen recalled. “He miraculously got pushed out at the 1-yard line on a 50-yard run by a (lightweight) safety. Right after the play, he looked at me, then pointed to the other kid, and we got him his TD.”
Tidwell, Veazy’s football teammate and drill partner in the wrestling room, believes that behind Veazy’s dominance, the Mustangs could pull a stunner Saturday night in the team championship race. Ponderosa’s won 10 wrestling titles but none since 2010.
“It’s going to come down to who wants it more,” Tidwell said. “With what is going on here (in our room), we fight more. We want it more.”
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