Get used to Big Black winning, because the Pomona wrestling dynasty is just hitting its stride.

The Panthers won a fifth straight Class 5A title on Saturday at Ball Arena, giving them seven crowns in the last eight years and ten overall, tying Ponderosa for most big-school wrestling titles all-time. And with seven freshmen among Pomona’s 13 qualifiers this year, the Panthers have Ponderosa’s record of eight consecutive titles within sight.

“Other than Ponderosa in the 2000s, I can’t remember another time in Colorado wrestling history that any other program has been close to doing what Pomona is doing now,” said Tim Yount, who runs On The Mat. “The scary thing is, this has been in the works, and it’s also just beginning.”

Pomona sent nine wrestlers to the championship round Saturday night, and also dominated the consolation side of the brackets earlier in the day. The Panthers came away with five individual champions — freshman Zaidyn Quinonez at 106 pounds, freshman Derek Barrows at 120, freshman Kalob Ybarra at 144, senior Vincent Cabral at 150 and senior Jose Rosales at 215. The Panthers easily bested Ponderosa, now runner-up four of the last five years, by 88.5 points.

As former Ponderosa coach Tim Ottmann explained, the way Pomona is currently dominating 5A is different than how Ponderosa did it during the Mustangs’ eight-peat from 2003-10, when a few individual champions all but assured the Mustangs the crown.

“Back then, you had to bring seven or eight wrestlers to state and you hoped a couple scored points on the back side, but now the game has changed,” Ottmann said. “You’ve got to have the full team, and a bunch of really quality wrestlers in order to be up top. That’s where Pomona really gets its strength.”

Case-in-point: Last year, Ponderosa was up by over 50 points heading into the final day of the tournament. But despite that lead, and despite seven finalists for the Mustangs, coach Sam Federico’s Panthers rallied, largely by racking up points on the consolation side of the brackets. Pomona broke the state tournament record for points along the way with 256.5, and then broke that mark again on Saturday with 278.5.

“What Sam does really well is, a kid may lose and his dream of being a state champion is over, but he brings him back to take third,” Ottmann explained. “That’s a coaching thing there, because a lot of times kids get disappointed and want to give up. He’s always able to rally his troops.”

Federico’s run at Pomona since taking over the job there in 2013 — and winning the state title in Year 1 — has earned the respect of rival coaches such as Ottmann, who recognize and admire the multiple facets fueling the Big Black powerhouse, even as they want to stop it.

“I asked (Federico) before my induction into the CHSAA Hall of Fame, for which he wrote me a letter (of recommendation), ‘How much longer you going to be doing this?’” Ottmann said. “He goes, ‘Well, until we beat Ponderosa’s record.’ And they’re well on their way to doing that. As a Pondo guy, I would love nothing more than for (the Mustangs) to disrupt that. But it’s going to be hard.”

Jarion Beets, in his second year as the Mustangs’ head coach after eight years as an assistant, isn’t shy about making his program face the gap between themselves and the Panthers. At practice in the week before state each of the past two seasons, Beets brought Ponderosa’s runner-up trophy from the year before and put it in the wrestling room as an obvious reminder of what — and who — the Mustangs are chasing.

“We know we just need to keep working to catch Pomona,” said Ponderosa freshman Tommy Verrette, who won the 126-pound title on Saturday. “We have a lot of good young guys coming in and already here. Freshman Jaylen Burge (who lost in the 113-pound final) and sophomore DJ Wince (who lost in the 120-pound final), those guys are already so close and right there. We’ve got to just keep going.”

Verrette knows what the wrestlers at other top 5A programs know, too — that in order to win a team state title, a dynasty will need to be dethroned.

“Everybody’s got to come up to the standard,” observed Bob Smith, CHSAA wrestling historian and former longtime coach at Wray. “Pomona is setting it right now. This is my 72nd straight state tournament and Pomona is as dominant as any team I’ve ever seen.”

Pine Creek coach Billy Gabel believes Pomona’s domination is good for the rest of the sport, despite the fact the Panthers have been cast as villains during their recent run of dominance at Ball Arena. Pomona wrestlers are sometimes subject to boos when they win, and cheers when they lose.

“It motivates everybody else to train harder, and work harder, and do the things to get your team to that level,” Gabel said. “And a lot of people don’t understand, to meet that level of success, that’s a lot of time put in by Sam and the rest of the Pomona coaches, all year long.”

Pomona has two distinct advantages over the rest of the state in building and maintaining its dynasty. Most importantly, its robust youth system, Pomona Elite, feeds the Panthers’ wrestling machine.

“That shows our success is not just about a team, it’s about a program,” Federico said. “We have a great youth coach, Sal Gutierrez, who does a phenomenal job running Pomona Elite. When we get them, they’re ready, as you can see this year.”

The Panthers also travel extensively, especially during the high school season, when trips to premier national tournaments such as Ironman and Doc Buchanan are the norm. Ponderosa does all of that too, but is behind Pomona when it comes to the youth pipeline.

“Until other schools begin to travel lots of guys like that — and of course that takes a lot of money and it takes a lot of (booster and parent) support — that’s one big reason it’s going to be a two-team race for a while,” Ottmann said. “I think Pondo needs to take a hard look at the junior program, and make sure we’re doing some of those things Pomona is doing. Of course, they have the whole Arvada region, and Parker is more competitive with (the clubs). Everybody’s got their own junior program in Parker and they’re all vying to do that well.”

Consecutive wrestling titles

Wray still holds the all-time mark with 16 state titles, including five of the last six in Class 2A. Here’s a look at the best runs of consecutive state championships in state history.