On the way to winning the Centennial League wrestling title in Topeka last weekend in dominating fashion, the Emporia High wrestling team managed to advance nine athletes into the finals of their respective weight classes.
The result was six individual champions and a 222-180 victory over second-place Manhattan, which earned the Spartans their first league championship in three years.
With Class 5A Regionals looming this Saturday, senior Josh Rodriguez could think of nothing better than to have a repeat of last weekend.
“Hopefully we can get nine in the finals again,” Rodriguez said. “We’re wrestling well, and we should be. We’re peaking at this time, and I think we’re wrestling really well.”
While the No. 7-ranked Spartans wrestled as well as they have all year last weekend, there is no doubt that the competition becomes much greater this weekend when Emporia welcomes seven other teams into its home gym for one of four Regionals across the state. The field includes last year’s State champions, Bishop Carroll, which is ranked No. 2 in the state behind St. Thomas Aquinas.
Perennial powers like No. 6 Arkansas City, No. 9 Kapaun-Mt. Carmel and Newton also are among the teams flocking to Emporia, as well as Ottawa, Wichita West and Winfield.
“It gets ratcheted up quite a bit,” EHS coach Greg Buckbee said. “It’s going to take another performance like we had last weekend (to win).”
However, Emporia’s regular season schedule was specifically designed to test the Spartans so that once they got to the League, Regional and State meets, the Spartan wrestlers would be battle-tested and experienced. The Spartans traveled to tournaments loaded with the state’s top talents at Arkansas City, Newton, Derby and Garden City, and also matched up with teams from Manhattan and Shawnee Heights in duals, among others.
In fact, the Spartans have faced every team they will see on Saturday except for one: Ottawa.
“I think we’re ready. Our team is good to go,” sophomore 112-pounder Justin Rose said. “We should have a chance to win it. We just need to stay focused, wrestle hard and keep to the basics.”
Coupled with last weekend’s Centennial League championship — Emporia’s 30th overall — the Spartans are heading into Saturday with a great deal of momentum.
“It (winning the league title) was a big confidence–booster going into Regionals and State,” said Rodriguez, who is Class 5A’s second-ranked wrestler in the 275-pound class. “We met one of our goals, and now our goal is to win Regionals.”
Should the Spartans win the team championship on Saturday, it would be the second year in a row that the squad has taken the Regional title. However, this year would be much different than last year’s victory, seeing as how not one team the Spartans faced in last year’s Regional appears in this year’s.
Buckbee said he expected nothing less than at least a performance equal to what he witnessed in Topeka last week on Saturday.
“I expect better things, greater things,” he said. “That’s the way it should be. We should be getting better now.
“We’re peaking. We started to see that last week, and I think we’re going to be even better this week. Granted, the competition is going to be tougher, but I think we’re going to wrestle even better.”
The 5A Regional meet will begin at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday in the Emporia High School gymnasium.