By Rob Sherrill, W.I.N. High School Editor

He’s one of the top 189-pounders in the nation, but even Alamosa (Colorado) High’s Sonny Yohn isn’t immune to an occasional loss.

Yohn found that out after apparently scoring the winning takedown in the second period of the 189-pound Junior National freestyle final at Fargo, N.D. last summer. That takedown would have given Yohn, who had won the first period of the title showdown against Oklahoma State-recruit Clayton Foster of Kamiah (Idaho) High, a 1-1 tie and victory as a result of being the final point scored in the period.

But the takedown was disallowed, leaving Foster with a 1-0 victory and extending the match to a third and decisive period. Foster countered an early throw attempt by Yohn and went on to win the period and title by a 4-1 score.

Coming out of a state championship football season, Yohn also was surprised in the quarterfinals of the Reno (Nev.) Tournament of Champions in December, losing 15-6 to Ryan Smith of Temecula (Calif.) Valley High. But he got revenge with a pin in the third-place match as Alamosa, the Reno champion in 2005, finished a strong fifth this season.

Yohn comes from a wrestling background. His father, Kenny, was the school’s first state champion as a high school senior in 1978 and Sonny — yes, that’s his given name — actually followed his younger brother, Cody, into the sport as a fourth-grader after playing a variety of sports. He and Cody, now a 171-pounder, have combined for three Class 4A state titles. Sonny, who committed to the University of Minnesota, is aiming to close his career before a packed house of nearly 20,000 at Denver’s Pepsi Center with a third state title.

Recently, W.I.N. caught up with Yohn for this candid interview.

WIN: Alamosa is a small town, but it seems to be quite a wrestling town. Isn’t wrestling petty much the big game in Alamosa?
Yohn: Wrestling’s always been one of the top sports, but we’re doing real good in other sports this year, too. We won (the) state (title) this year in football, the basketball teams are both doing good and the wrestling team’s been on top the last 20-some years.

WIN: What position did you play in football?
Yohn: Middle linebacker and tailback.

WIN: So you never came off the field? Those are two positions where you get hit on every play. You must really have been sore every Saturday morning.
Yohn: (Laughs) Yeah, I spent most of Saturday and Sunday recovering from the game.

WIN: How much of an adjustment was it, coming back into the wrestling season from the football season, especially when you’re going that deep into the playoffs?
Yohn: It’s real hard. It cost me a match, actually, at Reno. I still wasn’t in shape. I had less than two weeks to practice and get in shape.

WIN: What about that match? You’d be the last guy I’d expect to lose a match by that big a score.
Yohn: I was out of shape and he was ready to wrestle and I wasn’t. He got a lead on me and I’m not used to wrestling from behind, I guess.

WIN: Then you had to wrestle him again for third place and you turned that around…
Yohn: Yeah, I pinned him in the first period. I was ready for that one. (Losing) got me a little mad.

WIN: Alamosa won the Reno tournament last year. A lot of guys graduated from that team, but you did very well there again this year. Did the team exceed your expectations a little?
Yohn: Going into the tournament, I was hoping we’d (finish in the) top 10 again. We actually had a couple of guys that should have placed, but they kind of choked. But overall, we wrestled real good and we finished in the top five, which kind of surprised me.

WIN: At the time of that tournament, how long had you been out of football?
Yohn: The state football final was Dec. 2, so that was less than three weeks. And half of our team played football, too.

WIN: Why is Alamosa such a good wrestling town?
Yohn: I’d say that most of it is the coaching. They know everything there is and we’ve had a lot of good athletes, too.

WIN: The Ramstetters (Gary and now son Jason) have been the face of that program for so many years…
Yohn: Yeah, Gary was actually the assistant coach when my dad wrestled there.

WIN: So you kind of inherited wrestling, didn’t you?
Yohn: Yeah, my dad actually kept me out of it as long as he could. But then my little brother got into it and then I decided I’d give it a shot. He was in third grade, and I was in fourth grade.

(You can read the rest of this article by subscribing to W.I.N. Magazine. Either contact our office at 1-888-305-0606 or subscribe through this website by selecting the “Subscribe” section on our front page.)