Grant Union’s Mallory Lusco beams after winning her 190 pound state championship final at the OSAA/OnPoint State Wrestling Championships at Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Portland on Feb. 26, 2023. The 190-pound state title is the sophomore’s second in two years.

The Grant Union/Prairie City wrestling program has a pair of individual state champions for the second year in a row.

The co-op program’s boys and girls wrestling teams headed to Portland for the OSAA/OnPoint Community Credit Union Wrestling State Championships held Friday, Feb. 23, through Sunday, Feb. 26, at Veterans Memorial Coliseum. The Prospectors left Portland with a pair of individual state champions plus two more top-four finishers and fell just short of a pair of top 10 team finishes.

Sophomore Mallory Lusco won her second straight state championship at 190 pounds. Lusco won all of her matches at the state tournament by fall, defeating Rogue River’s Lilliyan Jaramillo via third-round fall to capture her second consecutive state championship.

Winning his first state championship at 126 pounds was freshman Taylor Parsons. Parsons won his quarterfinal and semifinal matches by fall before defeating Zakai Chatelain of Nestucca 5-1 in the final.

The Pros also had a pair of fourth-place state finishers in junior Alex Finley at 170 pounds and senior Lucas Wolf at 285.

Finley lost his quarterfinal matchup with eventual state champion Thomas Bischoff of Regis before rallying to win his next two matchups in the consolation bracket by fall. Finley would lose a tough 11-2 decision to Elgin’s Gen Wintersteen in the third- and fourth-place match.

Wolf had a similar run to his fourth-place finish, winning two consolation matchups by fall after suffering a defeat in the quarterfinal round. Wolf also suffered a tough loss in the third- and fourth-place match, losing a 5-0 decision to Lowell’s David Finch.

The Prospector boys scored 56 team points at state, good enough for a sixth-place finish. They placed just ahead of seventh-place Culver, which finished the tournament with 55 team points.

Fifth-place Willamina finished 23.5 points ahead of the Pros with 79.5 team points. Everyone was chasing eventual 2A/1A champions Illinois Valley, which finished the tournament with 154 team points.

The Lady Prospectors fell just a single team point shy of a top 10 state finish, finishing in 11th place with 27 team points. The Lady Pros held off 12th-place Oakridge by a single point and finished just a point behind 10th-place Scappoose.

Eventual 4A/3A/2A/1A girls state champions La Pine finished the tournament with 77 team points.

Grant Union/Prairie City head wrestling coach Andy Lusco said this year is the first time he can remember having a boys and girls state champion in consecutive years.

“We’ve had two champions before but never a girls and boys. … It is pretty cool to have one on both the boys and girls side,” he said.

Lusco also spoke to the difficulty in freshmen winning a state championship as Mallory Lusco did last year and Parsons accomplished this year.

“It’s hard to do when you’re young. A freshman state champion isn’t that common at any level of wrestling,” he said.

“To have two do that in consecutive years is pretty neat. Once you win a championship, it’s challenging to win another one. … Everybody wants to beat you,” he added.

Speaking on his team’s finishes, Lusco said the competition among the girls makes it tough for his team to find their way onto the podium.

“I think the girls side is always challenging when you’ve got so many — I mean the 4A schools, you’re competing with bigger schools,” he said.

“I think we were the highest 1A/2A team, and I liked that, I think that was good. We feel like Zoey (Beam) is one spot out and really could have been on the podium. We just made a mistake there,” he added.

“For the boys, we would’ve really liked to be in the trophies, but it’s always nice to be in that top handful of teams. I’m proud of them,” he said.