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NEWMAN GROVE — These Cedar Catholic wrestlers don’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon.
The Trojans wrapped up 2023 with a strong, third-place finish at the Newman Grove Holiday Tournament on Friday and the belief is there will be more hardware headed their way this year.
“Overall, as a team we wrestled really well,” Cedar Catholic head coach Justin Bartling said. “We faced some of our toughest competition of the year so far and even got to see a few district opponents. The hardest part for our sport is to come off of a five-day moratorium and have only one practice to get down to weight and get back into shape after the Christmas holiday, but our boys definitely handled all of that very well.”
Individual gold medals were won by Maverick Heine (113 pounds), Bodie Hochstein (126) and Easton Hochstein (132).
Other medals were brought back to Hartington in the shape of Braeden Kleinschmit (second, 138), Brady Hochstein (second, 150), Kale Korth (second, 175), Nicholas Coleman (fourth, 190), Ty Opfer (fourth, 132), Brody Kleinschmit (fifth, 126) and Hunter Kuchta (fifth, 144).
Bartling noted some highs which included his team finishing behind two top-six Class C teams only and Bodie Hochstein winning via beating two highly rated Class C grapplers.
“Bodie’s ability to stay calm and wrestle as smart as he does against those kids really is impressive and fun to watch,” Bartling said. “He is 17-1 this season as a freshman at a very tough weight and ranked No. 2.”
He also pointed out the performances of Heine (20-1) who broke the school record for career technical falls with his ninth in just his sophomore year, and Easton Hochstein being able to continue his unbeaten run in his first high school campaign.
“We did a fantastic job this week of being aggressive and more physical than we have been all year and that definitely showed,” Bartling said. “We still need to improve on the smaller fundamentals, but once we get that figured out we are going to be a very tough team to beat.
“The team as a whole showed tremendous growth and even our young JV wrestlers are medaling at these tough meets. Which really shows how well they push each other in the room every day. It goes to show that we can compete with any team.”
Kuchta said the talented freshmen class has definitely amped up the competitive levels in the wrestling room and it has also made older grapplers want to keep the pace.
“I just think that the team looks really good and all the wrestlers are doing a great job,” he said. “I think we did a really good job. The freshmen are doing a really good job and I think it definitely lifts our spirits and makes us want to do better as a team and be the best team and wrestlers we can be.
“I think that freshmen are definitely helping us with that, just doing as well as they’re doing to help us want to do just as well as they’re do ing.”
A lot of that youthful success stems from a level of competitive confidence.
“They just have the attitude that they’re going to win and that just makes them such good wrestlers that it doesn’t matter who the opponent is,” Kuchta said. “It’s definitely confidence in themselves, and in the coaching that they have received. They are more veterans than freshmen to me because they’ve been doing it their whole lives. They know how to get the job done. “
