The 2023-2024 wrestling season came to an exciting end with five wrestlers competing at state, three state medalists and one champion. Wrestlers and coaches experienced great improvement, success, and have high hope for the future of the program.
This year’s district tournament qualified three boys and two girls punching their ticket to the state tournament.
Sophomore Naomi Yoder and Senior Skylon Boone both worked for a spot at state. Yoder was only in her second year of wrestling, proving that making it to state was a big accomplishment and goal achieved.
“Overall, my experience at state was very fun and I can’t wait to go back,” Yoder said. Boone brought home first place in the district, but fell short a couple matches from medaling at state.
“Skylon was our only senior this season, with that and her qualifying for the state tournament as a junior she had placed some added stress for accomplishment on herself. She did a nice job throughout the season and really pulled it together at the end to win a District Championship and improve on her performance at the State Tournament,” Coach Justin Wisdom said.
Sophomore Josh Harvath ended up finishing in fifth place at state.
“I was really motivated and my goal was to place top three, but I fell short at fifth place,” Harvath said.
Junior Drake Murrell placed fourth at state.
“My biggest goal was to finally medal at state, it was a great atmosphere and a great experience,” Murrell said.
To follow those two medalists, sophomore Jayce Estes ended his season as a state champion in the 113 lb weight class.
“Treating my last match like it was a normal match took a lot of mental pressure away and allowed me to just wrestle and be me,” Estes said.
Coach Wisdom was proud to put three medalists on the state podium, but continues his focus for even more success in the future.
“As a coach I just try to put kids in positions to be successful, myself and our coaching staff felt like we did that and prepared them to succeed. The performances of Jayce, Drake, and Josh definitely give you a feeling of accomplishment, but at the same time, we just take a breath for a little while and move forward. Staying at the top is harder than getting there, so the work is never done,” Wisdom said.
Wrestlers put in the work all season to make their state goal.
“I mostly just try to focus on my main goals, which is perfecting my shots and to stay in shape, before heading into state,” Murrell said.
With the showing of great success at state this year, also gives coaches hope for the future.
“Only losing 1 senior is obviously a huge benefit for us as a program. The kids we have returning for next season and the eighth graders we have coming up as freshmen make the future very exciting for us as coaches. Obviously all of that is just “potential” and we know in wrestling nothing is handed to you, we will have to earn every bit of success that we plan to obtain. The end of this season was great and the best the Wildcats have seen in almost 20 years, so we will relish this hot ending to the season but stay humble as we will continue to move forward.” Wisdom said.
To add to the great success, the boys wrestlers that competed at state earned 10th place. This accomplishment hasn’t been met since 2005. Overall, bringing home three medals and top ten finish at state gives a lot of people hope for the future and upcoming seasons.
“As a team we talk about the overall #1 goal for all of us is to improve and maintain a great culture for Wildcat Wrestling, one that can filtrate throughout the school and community, which we will continue to help throughout every new year of wrestling.” Wisdom said.
