Even though Friday night’s meet was a mixer for the girls wrestling team, it didn’t stop them from passing the “pinning chain” around.
When one of the girls wins her match with a pin, she is greeted by a teammate who rewards her win with a giant chain that has the Cardinals’ logo on it.
“It really brings the team together because then the person who has the chain has to watch the match so they can pass it on,” senior Kyleigh Musick said. “That just makes everyone watch everyone. It’s a great team environment, and the smiles that happen when you put the chain on someone else – I love it. It’s awesome.”
Senior Jordan Dempsey and her mother helped start the tradition.
“I wrestled with a team in Iowa two summers ago who had a pinning chain, and me and my mom thought it was a really cool idea,” Dempsey said. “So, she looked online and found one and was like, ‘Hey, this is kind of obnoxious, but do you guys want one of these?’ And I was like, ‘Absolutely.’”
Dempsey said it’s always awesome to wear the pinning chain yourself, but she loves passing it to her teammates even more.
“It’s like, ‘You just earned this,’” Dempsey said. “It’s very rewarding, especially when you’re passing it off to a teammate. It’s cool in photos. It looks sick.”
Dempsey and Musick each got to wear the pinning chain twice during Friday’s mixer as both girls went 2-1 in their three matches.
The mixer was the team’s first home meet of the season as they hosted 10 other schools.
Dempsey described a mixer as a round robin between weight classes, but there is no final placings, essentially meaning the Cardinals got mat time against live opponents.
Head coach Miles Cleveland said a mixer this early in the season is really valuable for the Cardinals.
“It’s figuring out what works for them, maybe what doesn’t work for them. That’s a big part of it,” Cleveland said. “There were some really good things tonight, and there were some things that needed to be cleaned up for sure. But, it’s still really early in the year. Some of the matches we lost today, we won’t lose a month from now. It’ll be cleaned up, and they’ll wrestle a lot better.”
Musick said the mixer was good to get the newcomers on the team acclimated to facing live opponents.
“In the practice room, you can go and do things, and if you get pinned, you know, it’s just practice,” Musick said. “But when you’re on the mat, you’re working harder to get there, and when you try something new and it works, it feels amazing.”
Musick mentioned freshman Peyten VanHorn and senior Madison Karten as two teammates she was proud of after the mixer.
VanHorn won her first match with a pin and won her second via opponent forfeit. Karten went 1-1 on the night, winning her first match with a pin.
Senior Harper Andrews, juniors Reese Pattison, Maddy Arnold, Kaylyn Carpenter and sophomore Abby Fager each had a win on the night as well.
The girls team travels to Tonganoxie for a dual against the Chieftains at 5 p.m. Tuesday.
Cleveland said he hopes the Cardinals will take some things they learned from the mixer into the dual against Tonganoxie.
“I think they’re going to have a really tough team. I think that we are going to bring a really tough team. It should be exciting,” Cleveland said. “Hopefully the chain gets passed around a lot.”
The boys team is hosting a tournament of champions today (Saturday) starting at 9 a.m.
Reach reporter Jack Denebeim at [email protected].
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