Spartan grapplers at ease over trip to State tournament
By Michael Ashford
Thursday, February 22, 2007
When the brackets came out for this weekend’s Class 5A State wrestling tournament, they showed nine instances in either the first or second rounds where Emporia High’s 11 State qualifiers could potentially match up with an opponent ranked in the top 5 of their weight class.
Many saw it as a tough draw for the Spartans.
EHS coach Greg Buckbee had a different outlook.
“I told the guys on Monday, ‘You’ve seen your brackets. Your opponents have some tough draws,’” Buckbee said with a smile. “That’s the way you’ve got to look at it.”
The 11 Spartan qualifiers — Jared Dakin (103 pounds), Justin Rose (112), Sal Tovar (119), Tavo Dikin (125), Zeb Peak (135), Logan Gaskill (140), Taylor Lee (145), Bryce Shaver (160), Mark Kolmer (189), James Sparks (215) and Josh Rodriguez (285) — have certainly taken their coach’s words to heart. In fact, they’ve even embraced the challenge.
“Tough draws or not, we’ll have to wr those kids eventually if we want to win a title,” Peak said. “Might as well get it out of the way early.”
And it’s not as if the Spartans themselves are heading to the State tournament to be the whipping boys for the rest of the state’s top wrestlers. Emporia happens to have a few good ones too.
Of Emporia’s 11 State qualifiers, seven — Dakin, Rose, Tovar, Dikin, Kolmer, Sparks and Rodriguez — are ranked in the top 5 of their respective weight classes. Not only that, but the Spartans are coming off a second-place Regional showing in which they battled defending Class 5A champion Bishop Carroll down to the wire before falling by just five points, 184-179.
Combined with Emporia’s dominating Centennial League championship two weeks ago in which the Spartans won, 222-180, over Manhattan, and the EHS wrestlers believe they are wrestling as well as anyone in the state.
“We’re supposed to be peaking right now,” 103-pounder Jared Dakin said. “That’s how we planned the season. Everything is going how we planned, and we’re looking good.”
But while the goal is obviously winning a State championship — another one would give Emporia 10 State wrestling titles — Buckbee has worked all week on keeping his troops unnerved and at ease.
That much was evident at Tuesday’s practice, where jokes and laughter filled the team’s practice room.
“We’ve been trying to keep it light,” Buckbee said. “If you get caught up in win, win, win, you tend to get too nervous and don’t wrestle well.”
Perhaps throwing a kink into Emporia’s cause is the fact that at least four of the Spartans’ State qualifiers missed school earlier this week because of illness.
However, Buckbee was unconcerned for two reasons: It was still early in the week, and illness is somewhat expected this time of year.
“It’s a bad time of the year, but there’s not much you can do about that,” he said. “But I don’t think it is going to affect us. I think we’ll be ready to go. They’ve been working hard, and they’re coming out of it.”
The first round is scheduled to start at 10 a.m. on Friday at the Kansas Coliseum in Wichita, followed by the second-round championship quarterfinals at 1:45 p.m. and concluding with the first-round consolation bouts and championship semifinal set for 4:30 p.m. Action resumes on Saturday at 10 a.m., with the championship finals scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m.
Two days before leaving for Wichita, Peak said the Spartans were as ready as they’d ever be.
“We’re excited that we’re going to State,” he said. “State is so close this year. Anybody can take it. Whoever gets all the momentum is going to win it.
“We feel about the best that we possibly can.”