By Kevin Cunningham
Correspondent
All that remains for high school wrestling teams is postseason action.
Whitewater High School competed in a WIAA regional held in Evansville on Feb. 15.
To qualify for sectionals, individuals had to finish in the top two of their weight class, or a team could qualify by winning its regional.
WHS didn’t win the regional, but two wrestlers kept their seasons going.
“David Cushman bounced back in a big way, defeating a young man whom he had lost to in the conference semi-finals last week,” Whippets’ head coach John Schimming said. “David wrestled an outstanding match from start to finish to find his way into the finals. There he dropped the championship to a very good wrestler from Edgerton.”
Carter Friend, who also lost in the conference final match a week earlier, avenged his loss and qualified for sectionals.
“He won a very tight match, 3-1, in overtime,” Schimming said. “Carter continues to make adjustments for this opponent as they have met many times over the course of the season and the winning wrestler has won by either one point or in overtime.”
Whippet wrestlers who missed out on qualifying included CJ Tomomitsu, Cooper Hammond, Cody Gamble, Aaron Porras, Marcus DePorter and Will Leibbrand.
“Although the finish is not where we expected to be at the beginning of the season, the team wrestled tough on Saturday and should not hang their heads,” Schimming said. “Nobody went out and just cashed it in, but fought to the very last second. For the nine underclassmen who competed but did not get through, they will get back to work and set new goals for next season.”
Evansville also will host the sectional tournament, starting at 10 a.m. this Saturday.
In order to qualify for state, wrestlers must place in the top three of their respective weight classes.
Read more Whitewater High School sports in the Feb. 20 Register.
