Wildcats grapple with uncertain season

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According to Madill Wrestling Coach Jim Love, the Madill Wildcat wrestling team’s upcoming season will be full of uncertainty and challenges. Love expressed two attributes to the uncertainty prior to the season opener –whether the schedule will hold up and whether or not, he will be able to have a healthy team throughout the season.

Already, the Wildcats found out that the district tournament will see changes from last year. Flexibility in adapting will be critical, not just for Madill, but with all of the other district teams this season.

Challenges will mostly come from not knowing how many wrestlers will be able to be at practice. Love noted the team was seeing the unpredictability brought on by the pandemic.

“It was a great week for practices,” Love said, “however several student athletes were out due to illness.”

Even though the pandemic is holding the winter sports’ seasons hostage, the student athletes are still putting their all into it. The Wildcats had 27 wrestlers come out for the team, with 15 of those wrestlers competing for spots on the varsity squad.

Love noted that the “kids are working really hard and that the program is headed in the right direction” and added that as long as “they do the right things” this team will do well. Last season, the Wildcats finished second in the district and is hoping to improve their standings this season.

Madill is expected to face some tough competition on the schedule with the likes of Tuttle, Elgin, Pauls Valley, Wagner and Blanchard.

With Tuttle, they are changing coaches, but it is one of the nation’s top non-private schools that excels in its wrestling program.

However, within district competition, the Wildcats has Elgin to contend with and defeat. Even though Elgin faces Madill in district action, they have moved up to Class 5A.

There has already been one cancellation on the schedule with the Durant Lions. Coach Love said he hopes the season opener against Plainview on Thursday evening is able to happen without a hitch or ends up cancelled.

The schedule may be one thing but filling all of the weight classes for the Wildcats could be a challenge in itself for the coaching staff.

Three grapplers that Love and staff will turn to for leading the Wildcat way falls on senior Griffon Williams, junior Colby Sanford and freshman Reagan Combs.

Williams, who has been wrestling since seventh grade, gives coaches the most hope for success. Williams missed his freshman year of wrestling, but won regionals in his sophomore year, advancing all the way to finishing fourth in the state of Oklahoma.

Last season, Williams was out of the mix due to shoulder injury from football season. This year, Williams is healthy and is being called “a heart of a giant” on the team. Williams – 6’2” and 295 pounds – will wrestle at heavyweight and hopefully lead the Wildcats as the team’s lone senior.

Williams will find some help with junior Colby Sanford in the lineup at 152 pounds.

Sanford is in his fifth year of wrestling and has a few nagging injuries that he has been tackling. Coach Love said he feels that Sanford has potential to qualify for state tournament action and “shows a lot of confidence on the mat” to help the Wildcats.

Freshman Reagan Combs is another bright spot for the Wildcats in the 2020-2021 season but could start the season out with action on the junior high squad. Combs has been wrestling since seventh grade and is “being brought along gradually” and will probably start at 155 pounds on the junior high team and eventually see action at 145 pounds on the varsity squad.

The Wildcats will fill ten of the fourteen weight classes on average this season. Coach Love said that the Wildcats have not forfeited any matches for the previous ten years and is not used to having four or five weight classes to forfeit.

Love said he is really proud to have a growing junior high program, led by Austin Pettigrew, in building the future for Madill. Pettigrew is recruiting students to join the team, learn, grow, and build for the future. Love said that the growth pains will eventually pay off, but the Wildcats are not giving up either.

PROJECTED LINEUP:

106 – unfilled

152 – Colby Sanford (JR)

113 – Josh Mann (FR)

160 – Caleb Swinney (JR)

119 – Zander Bond (FR)

170 – unfilled

126 – unfilled

182 – James Page (SO)

132 – Rigo Barrientos (SO)

195 – Bryce Coles (SO)

138 – unfilled

220 – Cade Barker (JR)

145 – Stevie Love (JR)

HWT – Griffon Williams (SR)