Sweet Home’s Jacob Sieminski matches his father’s mark, captures third wrestling state title

In the late 1990s, Clint Sieminski was one of the state’s most dominant wrestlers. From 1996-1999, he finished with a 144-6 record and won three state championships.

Twenty-four years later, his son, Jacob Sieminski, was able to grab his third state championship for Sweet Home with a dominant first-round pin of Crook County’s Cash Wells in the 132-pound championship finals of the OSAA Class 4A state championship on Friday at Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

Clint Sieminski was the first Sweet Home wrestler to accomplish the feat of winning three state titles. Jacob Sieminski was the third to do it (Colton Schilling also did it in 2011-2014) and younger brother Kyle Sieminski (who won the 113-pound state title on Friday with a 6-3 win over Crook County’s Alberto Flores) is on pace to become the school’s first four-time state champion next year.

“That was an awesome way to end it,” Jacob Sieminski said of ending his high school career.

And while he’s had a decorated run, this marks the first time Sieminski was able to win a state championship in Veterans Memorial Coliseum. For the past two years, the 4A state championship was held at Cascade High School due to COVID protocols.

“It’s cool. I couldn’t get it my freshman year, then we were stuck in Cascade the last two years. That kind of sucked. But I got to get another one.”

Sieminski said Veterans Memorial Coliseum was not as scary as he remembered as when he was a freshman.

“It seems smaller than it did,” he said. “I remember freshman year, this place was huge. Now it’s not quite as big anymore.”

And Sieminski made sure his time under the lights mattered. In his championship match, he was dominant against Wells. After getting on top, Sieminski hit an arm bar and half nelson combination to stack Wells for a pin.

“I do that bar and half a lot. So I knew that once I got the initial bar and I was able to scoop that half that I was going to end it there,” he said.

Sieminski was sporting a new haircut on Friday. Earlier in the season he had longer curly hair, but at the state tournament was equipped with a fully shaved head. While the classic practice is wrestlers bleaching their hair for the state tournament, Sieminski said he wanted to go with something unique and wanted to see if any teammates would do it with him.

“I figured it was something that not many people do. So we got more than three-quarters of the team to buzz it last year and we got about 10 to buzz it this year. I was in the locker room before we left, buzzing heads in the locker room,” Sieminski said, laughing.