Comanche wrestlers ready to make their mark at state

Anchored by six seniors, the Comanche wrestling team will be looking to shake off last year’s disappointing performance at the state tournament as they look to be a force to be reckoned with in Class 3A.

“Things have been going pretty good so far,” said Casy Rowell, head coach. “We’ve got a few guys banged up from football season and we’re trying to get them healthy.”

Logan Bain is recovering from a leg injury that caused him to miss most of the football season and Kooper Doucet is recovering from a hand injury to name a couple.

“But, for the most part, we’ve been pretty steady,” Rowell said. “We had a decent (practice time) over Thanksgiving. We have a very talented team, but we’ve got to make sure we put the pieces together right if we want to make it work and keep everybody healthy. It’s like it was in football, if we keep them healthy then we’ve got a great team.”

Staying healthy to give them a chance of the most success is a big goal, but there are others.

“We want to work hard, stay healthy but we’re also challenging some young guys that will go out there,” Rowell said. “We have some younger guys with experience that are getting better and we will see if they can step up to the challenge. Guys like Legend Yates and Gage Sessions. If those guys and some others can make some noise, it would be huge for us.”

Bain and Doucet will be joined by fellow seniors Cade White, Noah Presgrove, Jack Newton and Kasen VanBuskirk. Cade White is a two-time state placer, taking third in 2021 and fourth in 2022.

“If you want to take six guys into battle with you, that’s six pretty good guys right there,” Rowell said. “Like I said, you throw in those younger guys like Legend and Gage and some freshman like Kanon Clift and Klayton Smith and we get them going, that would really help our team a lot.”

Comanche struggled in the lower weights last season, which is where the younger wrestlers come into play this year.

“We don’t have anyone at 106 right now,” Rowell said. “It’s tough to fill a 14-weight roster at a 3A school. Even in 2020 (the state championship year) we struggled to fill them all. It can be tough to compete at Dual State, but at the state tournament, you don’t have to have a full team. You need guys who can score some points.”

Which is exactly what Comanche did a couple of times last year, winning the Duncan tournament, winning district duals and finishing third at the regional tournament.

“For whatever reason, we didn’t perform well at the state tournament,” Rowell said. “I was talking to them about that the other day. A lot of things didn’t go right for us that week and I’ve been thinking about it all summer and all year. You have to credit the other teams. There are some good teams out there and if you slip up for one second, that ‘s all they need.”

This year marks the return of Doucet, a two-time finalist in 2020 and 2021. Doucet, who plans to play college golf, sat out wrestling in 2022 to work on his golf game. He came back for his senior season and is ready to go.

“He’s fitting right in and doing everything we asked and he’s immediately going to be a contender (for a state title),” Rowell said. “He’s made it to the finals twice, so you know what his goals are. He wants to be a state champion.”

White also has his eyes set on a state title this year. He wrestled at tournaments all over the country during the summer.

There are only two high school girls wrestling this year – Brooke West and Celina Quezada . West had great success at the junior high level and Quezada is new to the program.

“We’ve got 12 girls in the junior high program,” Rowell said. “We’re trying to build it. That’s all we are trying to do right now is just keep building. It’s hard to get high school girls who are juniors and seniors who had never wrestled before to come out, so we’re just going to keep plugging away.”