OMAHA - Three athletes from Southeast Nebraska schools earned the title of state champion at the 2025 NSAA Boys Wrestling State Championships in Omaha this week. It was a revenge win for Beatrice's Merrick Johnson; a dominant win for Wilber-Clatonia's Zaiyahn Ornelas; and a historic win for Southern's Drake Troxel. 

The championships began at the 157 weight class, so Beatrice's Merrick Johnson was the first local wrestler to take the floor on Saturday afternoon in the 175 weight class. Johnson reached the championship match last year only to lose, and he returned to the title match this season with only one loss to his record all season.

That loss came to the athlete on the other end of the mat: York's Brooks Loosvelt. Both athletes entered the match at 50-1 - Loosvelt's only loss this year? To Johnson. That set up a rubber match for a state title on Saturday evening in a match that became the closest of the final session to that point. 

Following a scoreless first period, Johnson got an escape in period two to take a 1-0 lead. Loosvelt nailed a reversal to get on the board followed by a Johnson escape, so the match headed to overtime tied at 2-2. In a rare extended match on Championship Saturday, Johnson notched a spin takedown 30 seconds into overtime to win 5-2 and claim the Class B state championship at 175.

Domination doesn’t even begin to describe what Zaiyahn Ornelas of Wilber-Clatonia did this week. He shut out his first three opponents to get to this point, and once again crushed his opposition to claim a state championship at C120.  

Ornelas entered Saturday with 50 wins on his resume this year, and one of those was against his title match opponent, Cody Barton from Malcolm. And in the title match, the bracket favorite wasted no time, executing a nice transition into a takedown 30 seconds in, and just dominated for the entire first period, pushing Barton over to the edge of the ring to get a near fall, and then keeping him on the ground through the end of the first period.

He then came right back out swinging to start off period two with an immediate takedown, and finished him off with another nearfall in the first 30 seconds.  With an 18-0 win, Wilber Clatonia’s Zaiyahn Ornelas is now a three-time state champion. He is still undefeated in his high school career, and completes a perfect season in 2025 with an absolutely dominant run through the tournament: 15-0, 15-0, 17-0, and 18-0 were his final scores.

And finally, Southern’s Drake Troxel made some history for his school and capped off a remarkable freshman season with a state championship in the Class D144 division. This was a solid week over for Raider wrestling, but Troxel's win was a historic one: he becomes Southern's first wrestling state champion since 1981.

Facing off against a senior, Walker Ott of Wisner Pilger, Troxel came out flying, notching two takedowns early in the first period. He let Ott escape twice to give him two points, and Troxel held a 6-2 lead after one. Ott chose bottom to start period two and scored a quick escape before Troxel returned with a third takedown to take a 9-4 lead into the third.

Ott made one final push out of nowhere, scoring his first takedown with about ten seconds left, and then late did what he could to turn Troxel to his back to tie the match – but Troxel held off the move and fended off that late push to claim the state championship with a 9-7 decision win in Class D144. 

A total of 15 athletes from nine different Southeast Nebraska schools earned spots on Saturday's final podiums, with Tri County's Cooper Stokebrand (C215) and Southern's Wyatt Forney (D113) earning second place and joining Johnson, Ornelas and Troxel among the competitors in the title matches on Saturday evening. 

In total, area athletes earned three first-place finishes, two second-place finishes, four third-place finishes, four fifth-place finishes, and two sixth-place finishes. 

Below is the full list of wrestlers from the KWBE and Ol' Red 99.5 listening areas who secured medals at this year's event. 

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BEATRICE

Merrick Johnson - 1st Place (B175)

Talon Belding - 3rd Place (B120)

Cole Karlin - 5th Place (B126)

FAIRBURY

Dalton VanLaningham - 5th Place (B138)

JOHNSON COUNTY CENTRAL

Erik Prado - 5th Place (C106)

MERIDIAN

JD Adam - 3rd Place (D175)

NORRIS

Eric Hall - 6th Place (B190)

SOUTHERN

Drake Troxel - 1st Place (D144)

Wyatt Forney - 2nd Place (D113)

THAYER CENTRAL

Cole Vorderstrasse - 3rd Place (D215)

TRI COUNTY

Cooper Stokebrand - 2nd Place (C215)

Riley Kopf - 6th Place (C175)

WILBER-CLATONIA

Zaiyahn Ornelas - 1st Place (C120)

Iverson Mejia - 3rd Place (C150)

Grant Eschiti - 5th Place (C132)