Cardinals wrestling sends four to state tournament

After realizing they both qualified for state, wrestling teammates junior Jordan Dempsey and sophomore Maddy Arnold embraced in a moment of pure joy. 

“It was a very emotional moment,” Arnold said. “That’s what we work for is to have those memories and those moments.” 

Arnold and Dempsey qualified for state by placing third and fourth, respectively, at regionals. The two girls will wrestle at the state tournament at the Tony’s Pizza Event Center in Salina starting today. 

They will be joined at the state level by two other Cardinal wrestlers. Freshmen Hawken Andrews and Braedon Speer placed third and fourth, respectively, at regionals last Saturday. The boys’ state tournament starts Friday. 

“I’m excited for all four of them,” head coach Miles Cleveland said. “I’m excited to see how they do this weekend.” 

For the girls, Arnold is making her second appearance at state while this will be Dempsey’s first time qualifying. 

“I’m definitely nervous,” Dempsey said. “I don’t really know what to expect, but I’m just going to go in open minded. Just being able to qualify and go is a huge goal in and of itself.”

Arnold said she thinks her experience from being in state last year gives her a better understanding of what she needs to do to be successful this year, but she is still nervous as well.

To ease their nerves, the girls said they would be doing different things to take their minds off wrestling or would just talk to each other about their matches. 

“You’ll catch me in the corner reading a book,” Arnold said. “Will I be actually reading it? I don’t know about that. But it’ll look like it. But we kind of just go into a dark room, we kind of just talk to each other about like, what we know, what we need to go into the match with and we are kind of like each other’s pep talkers.” 

The girls have their goals set high for state. Dempsey said her bracket will be challenging, but her top goal is to at least place. 

Arnold said she just wants to make it to the second day because she came just short of making it to the second day last year. 

As for the boys, this will be the first time they qualify for state since both Speer and Andrews are freshmen. 

Andrews said it is hard for him to believe he made it all the way to state because of how regionals went for him. 

“I lost one of my matches and I thought I wasn’t going to make it,” Andrews said. “But then I had my revenge. Revenge season started. That was pretty cool. And then when I won my qualifying match to go to state, I was just happy. It’s really awesome.” 

Andrews defeated two wrestlers he lost to earlier in the season to qualify for state. 

Speer got injured during regionals when one of his opponents used an illegal move on him. Speer said his hip was dislocated and he had to be rushed to the hospital. 

Despite the injury, Speer said he has been taking it lightly at practice while slowly ramping it up to get ready for state.

Since both are freshmen, they said qualifying for state is really motivating because it shows they can hang with the upperclassmen. 

“When you are beating someone that is older than you, better than you, and you see you can hang with them, it gives you the drive to go in the room and work harder,” Speer said. “You just put it all out and you just don’t care. You just have fun and you give it all on the mat.” 

Both said their goal is to place at state. 

In terms of the wrestlers’ preparation this week, Cleveland said practices have been short and sweet with the main concern being each wrestlers’ weight. 

Cleveland said he has no doubt that all four wrestlers could place at the state tournament. 

“There’s definitely going to be some nerves when they walk out on the mat,” Cleveland said. “But when it comes down to when the whistle blows, it’s just another match. And that’s how they have to go into it.” 

While he would love to see them all place, Cleveland said as long as each wrestler learns something they can take into next year he will be happy. 

“Obviously, I want to come home with state medals. Every coach does,” Cleveland said. “They’re all really young. They’re all going to be back next year. And if this particular state tournament is just a learning experience, they go out there, maybe they win one match, maybe they go win two. But as long as they’re learning something from it that they can bring back next season to make them even better, that’s what I hope.” 

Reach reporter Jack Denebeim at [email protected].

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