East Fairmont wrestling looks to finish Top 5 in states this season
Dec. 6—FAIRMONT — The only school in Marion County to not have a state champion last season, East Fairmont wrestling came close with two runners-up, and as a team the wrestling Bees finished 10th overall.
Having come so close to victory last year, third-year Head Coach Logan Bowman and his young team of wrestlers want to take the next step.
"As a team, I expect to place higher, really be pushing for a Top 5 finish," Bowman said. "The last two years we've had runners-up and haven't really gotten anybody to the top of the podium. We're trying to get back to that East Fairmont tradition to get someone on top of the podium."
The two runners-up from last year, Xaden Willett and Blake Ringer, are returning for their junior and sophomore years, respectively. State qualifier Lucas Marsh returns for his junior year too.
Willett placed second in the 106 weight class last season, defeated by Independence's Dillon Perdue in the final. Willett said he got to the final match through "consistent working" in the offseason and during the season.
Ringer finished as the runner-up in the 126 weight class, losing to cross-town rival Jason Walker from Fairmont Senior. In his freshman year last season, Ringer learned to not let his newness to high school wrestling stop him, and he trusted his coaches in the challenges he faced early in the season.
"[The biggest challenge was] probably my mindset after losing a couple of matches to some kids I probably shouldn't have lost to," Ringer said. "But I trusted my coaches and their word and worked hard in the room and came back."
While East Fairmont keeps three state qualifiers, it lost a few others in key seniors that helped the team throughout the past few years. Levi Carpenter, Evan Helm, James Miller and Evan Bartholow all graduated, taking their state tournament experience with them.
The only senior on the team is a first-time wrestler, meaning the juniors on the team will have to step up as the most experienced members and lead the team.
Marsh hopes to teach the younger wrestlers the discipline necessary to compete in the sport. He added that he hopes the junior class can act like seniors in leading the team.
"I hope we fill in the gaps that [the seniors] left," Marsh said. "We didn't have a lot of seniors last year, but the year before we had a good big. I hope as a younger team we can still act like seniors and act more above our age."
One advantage East Fairmont has over some other schools is how much sooner the football players who also wrestle started to practice on the mat. Bowman said it's important to get as much practice in as possible.
"The more time we got to practice, the better wrestling condition they can get in," Bowman said. "You can be in shape to do a lot of things, but the only way you can get into wrestling shape is by wrestling. Having these kids earlier gives us longer to get them in wrestling shape and actually get mat time to get better."
In preparation for the upcoming season, many of the wrestlers traveled to other cities to train during the summer. According to Marsh, Bowman sent the team to the Jeff Jordan State Champ Wrestling Camp in Ohio to train under the renowned former wrestler and coach.
"Jeff Jordan was an incredible wrestler," Marsh said. "They just got a lot of knowledge of the sport. They've been around it for their entire lives, and they just knew what to do. They did a really good job of passing that on to us in every way. They taught us a lot of just how to connect more moves together and everything like that."
East Fairmont opens the wrestling season at John Marshall High on Saturday, Dec. 9. The Bees then host a quad wrestling match Wednesday, Dec. 13.
Reach Colin C. Rhodes at 304-367-2548
