SMS HAWKS SOAR TO THE TOP AT STATE

The Severance Middle School Hawks went undefeated, won their league, won their region, and then walked into the RMN Colorado Middle School State Tournament and walked out with the ultimate prize.

March 31, 2026  |  Severance, Colorado

There are seasons that exceed expectations, and then there are seasons like the one the Severance Middle School Hawks just put together — the kind that make every dual meet, every early-morning practice, every hard cut feel like it was always building toward something bigger.

The Hawks didn't just win the RMN Colorado Middle School State Tournament. They completed something. An undefeated run through dual competition. A league title. A regional title. And now, the gold at the top of the mountain.

State champions. Every word of it earned.

2026 RMN Colorado Middle School State — Severance Individual Placers

Boys

1stDeclan Collins145 lbs

2ndCorbyn Dare140 lbs

2ndHayes Ingram100 lbs

Girls — 2nd Place Team

1stCamden HarrisHWT

1stEmma Thomas94 lbs

4thVega Vitosh88 lbs

6th   Vivian Bornhoft   101 lbs

From left to right are Corbyn Dare (2nd), Declan Collins (1st) and Hayes Ingram (2nd).

The boys' championship was anchored by three wrestlers who came to compete on the biggest stage Colorado middle school wrestling has to offer. Declan Collins stood atop the podium at 145 pounds, delivering a state title performance worthy of the moment. At 140, Corbyn Dare battled his way to a silver medal finish. And at 100 pounds, Hayes Ingram earned his own runner-up hardware in what had to be one of the more competitive brackets of the day. Three kids on the podium. One team trophy. The math worked out exactly right.

"The rewards are not the trophies, rather it's seeing the entire team evolve into a family."— Head Coach Kurt Felker

But this Severance program isn't just a boy's story.

Emma Thomas took 1st place at 94 pounds, one of two ladies to stand at the top of the podium at RMN Colorado Middle School States. The other was Camden Harris in the HWT division.

The girls team put together their own state-level statement, finishing as Colorado's 2nd-place team behind a pair of individual champions. Camden Harris dominated the heavyweight bracket, and Emma Thomas claimed gold at 94 pounds — two girls from the same school standing on top of their respective weight classes on the same day. Vega Vitosh added a fourth-place finish at 88 pounds, and Vivian Bornhoft rounded out the team's scoring with a sixth-place showing at 101. That's the kind of depth that moves a program up the standings and turns heads statewide.

Head coach Kurt Felker wasn't even present for the tournament — monitoring brackets from afar, cheering from a distance — but his fingerprints were all over the performance his athletes turned in. It was Felker who built the culture, who emphasized family over hardware, who put together a coaching staff that kept this team pointed in the right direction all season long.

"This team has made a lasting impact at Severance Middle School," he said afterward, and it's hard to argue with him.

Coaching StaffHead Coach Kurt Felker  |  Lacey Felker  |  Seth Neeley  |  Adam Lucier  |  Mitch McElmeel  |  Jon Fredrickson

It's also worth noting that this championship didn't arrive in a vacuum. Earlier in March, Severance claimed the NCAC conference title —a back-to-back performance in fact . That league hardware was followed by a regional title, meaning the Hawks ran the table at every level of competition the Colorado middle school wrestling calendar had to offer. Dual season: undefeated. Conference: champions. Regionals: champions. State: champions.

That's not a good season. That's a perfect one.

Programs like this one are built over years of unglamorous work — of coaches showing up early and staying late, of parents supporting the program, of wrestlers grinding through the offseason when nobody is watching. The 2025-26 Severance Middle School Hawks boys wrestling team is the product of all of that, and they just validated every bit of it in the most public way possible.

State champions. It has a nice ring to it.