The point is called. Senior and team captain Gavin “Chipper” Jorns is up 3-2 at State and has just sent his match into overtime. He’s already pinned this wrestler once this year, he should be able to do it again. But the unthinkable happens. Jorns pukes all over the mat. They clean it off and they’re wrestling again, but Jorns can’t recover. He loses the match. The rest of the day is a struggle, battling other wrestlers and the flu. By the end of the day, he places sixth in his weight class.
That sums up most of the Wrestling team’s season this year. A lot of injuries and sickness plagued the team.
“This is a year that we’ve dealt with more injuries, more sicknesses and other outside factors than ever before,” coach Jason Filbeck said. “Kids with concussions, kids with shoulder problems. It was just patched together for most of the year.”
Early in the season both team captains struggled with injuries. Senior and captain Jack Mitchell suffered from a concussion early in the season and Jorns suffered from shoulder problems. The team struggled to put wrestlers on the mats in meets throughout the early season due to injuries and the flu.
“This year the sickness bug got us,” head coach Chip Ufford said, “You can call that bad luck.”
But as the year progressed the team finally started to get healthy. Meet by meet, the team was able to put more and more guys on the mats and things were finally starting to come together. At the Sunflower League meet, the team was able to wrestle all but one wrestler — the biggest squad all year. They placed third at the meet, missing second by only a point, losing to rival Lawrence.
Spirits were high as they got ready for the Regional meet. For the first time all year, luck was on their side, and all 14 members of the team were able to wrestle.
“We thought we’d probably win [Regionals],” Filbeck said. “It ended up as kind of a blowout really. The stars kind of lined up.”
East placed first at Regionals by a big margin, beating Lawrence by over 30 points– the squad that had just beaten them at League. Mitchell and Jorns were both able to take home first place medals along with juniors Grant Hollingsworth, Chris Rodriguez and sophomore Barrett Cooper. And, for the first time in school history, the entire team had qualified for State.
“Well, honestly, it’s an accomplishing feeling,” Jorns said after winning the Regional meet. “I went from beating the kid I faced in the finals of league, to pinning him in the finals of regionals.”
Then came State. The team placed thirteenth at State, four places behind Lawrence. Mitchell placed third in the State. Hollingsworth placed fifth, Jorns placed sixth and senior and first year varsity wrestler Jon Reuter stepped up to place sixth.
“If Chipper’s healthy, like he was the weekend we won regionals over Lawrence, then we finish ahead of Lawrence,” Ufford said. “They were healthy at the right time — we weren’t.”
Even with their difficulties, East managed to place better than where they placed last year.
Now the team is looking forward to next season. The team will be losing a few wrestlers going into next year, including State placers Mitchell, Jorns and Reuter.
“Every year there’s a question of how are we going to replace that kid, how are we going to replace those Hill brothers and before that how are we going to replace Matt Baker?” Filbeck said. “How are we going to replace Chipper and Jack Mitchell — don’t know, but someone will have to. Someone will have to step up and do it.”
Next year the team will look for leadership out of junior Grant Hollingsworth and sophomore Barrett Cooper. The squad will look to young talent like freshman Michael Aldrich, who was a big point scorer for East this year.
“Wrestling’s funny,” Filbeck said, “Whatever kid decides that they want to put in the time, that’s who’s going to have a good year. It’ll be interesting to see who does make that big jump.”
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