Griswold/Wheelers 2024 Season

Griswold High School wrestling team had a great 2023-2024 season, Griswold's team co-op with Wheeler did phenomenal and pushed their way through with many victories. 

Griswold's team is held together by their coach, Dana Cooke a math teacher at Griswold who won ECC coach of the year in 2019. The team isn't a solo operation for Coach there are also currently 2 assistant coaches, Coach Jay and Cadan, Jay is currently in the Coast Guard, and Cadan served in the Marines and both are great wrestlers as well. Not only are there the coaches and assistant coaches but some graduated students like to come back and help, for example, Cody Comeau and Aiden Christie. 

The team's relationship is extremely important to our season's performance and that puts a heavier burden on the team captains, this year Seth and Caleb Christie, and John Macfeat. Jeff Bentley, Seth's practice partner had a good season going 18-11, overall the team went 18-7 in the overall season and for ECC division 3 the team went 3-1. The team also performed well in multiple tournaments, 13th at the Lancer tournament, 6th at Casey Yates, 5th at the Griswold Invitational, 5th at the Highlanders tournament,  10th at class s, and 6th place at ECC’s

Seth's match at ECC’s was very adrenaline filled as it ended in overtime with a score of 10-8, the match was almost ended in the last 4 seconds for a second locking hands call which would have caused Seth to lose and place second at ECC’s, but the refs were unsure and the crowd started a chant “overtime” and it overpowered the call and they went into overtime to finish their match. In overtime Seth almost lost his takedown points due to loss of control in his double leg but kept his opponent from scoring and eventually Seth did go around and get his 2 and win his second ECC championships match. 

After interviewing a couple of well-experienced wrestlers on the team I was able to get some more background information onto the season. I asked a handful of questions, such as,  how was their season overall? What was their record, what were their hardest challenges throughout the season? What was their motivation? And what they would say to someone considering joining wrestling? Jeffrey Bentley was short but straight on his points, saying he says his season was about 50/50, and his record being 17-14, Jeffrey was unfortunately out for a part of the season for various reasons, his hardest challenge was cutting the weight necessary to make the weight class coach wanted him at, and his biggest motivation was food, and he tells all people considering that it's a fun sport if you have a tough mind.

Russell claims to have had a good season with a record of 36-15, his hardest challenge was dealing with the kids who got in his way, making sure to stay focused and motivated, and to keep pushing after his losses. His motivation is making sure he can be the best wrestler he can be and to get something worthwhile out of all the hours and hard work that he puts into it. Russell would tell someone considering joining the sport that if they join they need to put the work in and be fully committed to the sport and if they do that they will have a good season