BEWrestling

By JEREMY HINES
Thehines7@gmail.com
 
Jeb Prechtel was the first Jasper wrestler to call the school’s new coach, Alex Lee last season. He wanted to see who would be teaching him for the next few years.
 
So, Prechtel gave Lee a call and asked if they could practice together.
 
“I kind of wanted to see if I could beat up on him,” Prechtel joked.
 
The coach and the student wrestled that first day and Lee scored a few takedowns on the young grappler. Prechtel wanted to learn how he got those takedowns and how he could stop them in the future.
 
“He called me that night and was asking what he was doing wrong and what he needed to do better,” Lee said. “He expects to beat everyone. He doesn’t care if you’re the coach or Jordan Burroughs. He expects to win. I knew right then this was a special wrestler. It bothered him that he didn’t know some things and he stayed up trying to figure them out. Once you tell him, you don’t have to tell him again. He’s is a very good learner.
 
Prechtel is currently ranked No. 3 in the state at 160 pounds. The senior is undefeated at 30-0. And, almost shockingly, he is coming off of his very first sectional championship last week.
 
Prechtel is almost the poster child for bad tournament luck throughout his career.
 
In his freshman season he ran into a very talented Gavinn Alstott in the Southridge sectional final. He fell to Alstott and then, for the next two seasons, he lost to eventual state champion J Conway in the sectional finals.
 
“Winning a sectional actually felt really good,” Prechtel said. “Having J Conway in sectional the last two years has really be a learning experience for me. I have learned how to take losses early in the post season. Now I’m wrestling with a lot more confidence.”
 
Prechtel has one goal this year – a state title.
 
“Jeb is determined,” Lee said. “He works tirelessly. I’m fully confident that he will reach his goal. I really expect to see him wrestling under the lights.”
 
According to Lee, Prechtel is a student of the sport. He soaks up as much wrestling knowledge as he possibly can and he’s a relentless worker.
 
Despite his work ethic and hunger for wrestling knowledge, Prechtel had a weakness he didn’t know how to overcome. He almost feared close matches.
 
“I’ve dealt with a lot of mental battles in my wrestling career,” Prechtel said. “I lost in semistate one year by one point. I was always scared of one-point matches. That was something I’ve tried very hard to overcome. It was a mental block with me.”
 
So Prechtel talked with his coaches in high school and his coaches at Maurer Coughlin Wrestling Club. He desperately sought answers to how he could overcome his mental block with those one-point matches.
 
“I told them, I just don’t know how to fix this,” Prechtel said. “I’ve lost my two most important matches of my career by a point. I don’t know how to overcome this.
 
“So they told me that I’m going to have one point matches. They said I have to go out there and just know that I trained harder than the other guy and I worked harder than he did. I have to have the confidence in those close matches that I am the better wrestler and I am going to win.”
 
So, this year he’s had that mindset in every match he’s wrestled. He said he treats every match as if it’s the state championship.
 
“Every match I’m zero and zero and I’m wrestling for a championship,” he said. “This year I have a totally different mindset. It started at the end of the offseason. I’m more confident. In my mind, I know I outwork anyone. I can push myself further than I have before.”
 
Lee knows that the sky is the limit for Prechtel because of the amount of work he is willing to put in.
 
“He’s been a captain of this team for three years,” Lee said. “He’s an awesome leader. He leads verbally. He leads by example. He works harder than anyone I have ever coached.”
 
When he’s not wrestling, Prechtel enjoys hunting, fishing and snow skiing. He plans to wrestle in college and study business management, but he is currently undecided on where he will go.
 

By JEREMY HINES
Thehines7@gmail.com
 
The Franklin Central wrestling team needed more than a coach. They needed someone to share the enormous burden of grief, someone to cry to, and someone to help them cope with pain no high school kid should ever have to endure. As it turned out, coach Kevin Moore needed the team just as much as they needed him.
 
“It’s almost like I was meant to come here,” Moore said. 
 
This is Moore’s fifth season at the helm of the Flashes. There have been five deaths in the wrestling family during that span – a statistic that nobody wants to keep.
 
“We have literally lost a person every year I’ve been here,” Moore said.
 
Senior Johnny Weisheit’s mother was murdered. Sophomore Gauge Clark’s sister was murdered. Former semistate qualifier Charlie Harp committed suicide in 2018 and just this November senior Ayden Harper died. Harper was one of the team captains and always led the warmups before matches.
 
While Moore has tried to be there for the wrestlers during their grieving, he faced tragedy of his own. His wife, Mariah, was hit and killed by an impaired driver.
 
“If it wasn’t for this community, I would have left a long time ago,” Moore said. “I’ve never seen people come together like they have here. When my wife passed, I didn’t have to do laundry, cook, or even pay for the funeral. The community did that for me. It was the same with Ayden – they paid for his funeral as well. Everyone is checking in on me all the time – and I know people are checking in with Ayden’s family and the other guys on this team as well.”
 
In the midst of tragedy, the team has found solace on the wrestling mat. It’s their escape from reality, if only for a few hours a day.
 
“Wrestling is tough,” Moore said. “It’s hard. It’s painful. But it gives you something you can control. There are a lot of things happening to these guys that they can’t control – but they can control what happens on the mat. Losing these people that we have lost, it completely sucks. But you can’t live life with those emotions. You have to find a way to move on.”
 
Each wrestler on the Franklin Central roster is dealing with pain. The tragic journey has made them closer than brothers.
 
“My teammates, they are my brothers,” junior Aataeveon Jordan said. “We aren’t blood, but we are. We have each other’s back. You mess with one of us, the rest of the lineup has their back even if we’re in the wrong.”
 
And, the pillar of the team, is coach Moore. He’s their rock – a responsibility he believes is one he must shoulder.
 
“There are certain people that are meant to handle these types of situations,” Moore said. “There are people that are built for it. Unfortunately, I’ve lost my wife and my kids lost their mother. In an unfortunate circumstance you have to lead by example. A lot of these young men don’t know that it’s OK to cry. They don’t’ know it’s OK to show that they are hurt. It’s OK to show emotion.
 
“I would never want to say I’m like a father-figure – but we just have a different kind of bond going through all of this. To be effective as a coach, at times I have to be like their dad and at times I have to be like an older brother.
 
When Mariah was in the hospital, the team was there with the coach almost daily. He had been their rock through their turmoil and then it was their turn to be his.
 
“They really helped me get through it,” Moore said.
 
The Flashes are hoping to turn their pain into success on the mat. The goal is to win the school’s first wrestling sectional since 1995. For some of the wrestlers, like Jordan, the individual goal is a state title.
 
“My goal is to get that blue ring,” he said. “That blue ring has been calling my name.”
 
Jordan is one of three ranked wrestlers on the Franklin Central team. Jordan is ranked No. 15 at 195 pounds. Last season he placed 8th at 220. Clark is currently ranked No. 17 at 106 pounds and senior Cayden Shelton is No. 17 at 138.
 
“We also have Ashton Brandon, who didn’t have a chance to finish the season last year, but I think he will surprise a lot of people,” Moore said. “He’s our 132-pound senior. He’s a hands-on, in your face, gritty wrestler. He puts his hands on you for six minutes and he doesn’t wear down. He’s also a big-time leader.”
 
Moore has helped build the Franklin Central program from when he started.
 
“There were 13 kids in the room when I started,” he said. “I spent all pre-season recruiting, and that’s what we got. Now we have a middle school room of about 40-50 kids and the high school team started out with about 70. I’m impressed with the culture shift I have seen. I think what these kids have gone through, and persevered is unique and amazing.”
 
The Flashes only were able to send a few wrestlers to the Marion County tournament because of illness. But, when the team is at full strength, Moore has high hopes. Win or lose, he’s in their corner and they are in his. They’ve been in the valley for a while, and now they are ready to climb out.
 
“Coach Moore has really been our shoulder to cry on, and we are his,” Jordan said. “I think the one thing we can all take from this is that, on this team, ain’t nobody ever alone. We all have each other.”

The increasing reality of the internet is subscription plans. Looking at other state websites almost all of them have some sort of subscription in order to view most of the content. IndianaMat has bucked the trend and continued to be a free site utilizing other revenue streams that pay the bills. One of our revenue streams over the past few years has been our extremely popular preseason magazine. This year we set a record with the sales which will help us add staff members and equipment to better cover the sport.
 
However, with increasing coverage and content comes higher bills and expenses. This year we are going to implement our Silverback subscription program. Many of you may have noticed that some people are tagged as Silverbacks on the forum. That basically means they have purchased a magazine whether a physical or digital copy. With that perk comes the ability to view our preseason rankings. We are not going to stop there though. We are giving early access to all of our rankings to these people for the first 24 hours after each individual ranking set is released. As we move along this season there will be more perks added to this membership.
 
If you do not want to purchase a magazine you can become a subscriber by going to the subscriptions tab at the top or in the mobile menu and subscribe. Once you purchase a subscription plan or a magazine you will be upgraded to the Silverback group.
 
The cost is $10 and will give you access to our Silverback subscription plan for a year. There will be more perks later this year for members as we add more features to the website.
 
Click here to purchase a subscription
https://indianamat.com/index.php?/subscriptions/
 
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By JEREMY HINES
Thehines7@gmail.com
Brayden Littell’s high school wrestling career hasn’t exactly gone as planned. The junior has just one loss in high school, a one-point defeat at the hands of two-time state champion Asa Garcia. He has defeated another Indiana state champion, twice. Yet, Littell has yet to wrestle a single state tournament match.
Littell grew up wrestling in the Center Grove school district. He wrestled with the Trojans in elementary school and middle school. As a freshman, however, he enrolled at Perry Meridian.
During that freshman season Littell defeated Roncalli’s Alex Viduya twice. Viduya went on to claim the state championship at 113 pounds. Littell never made it to the tournament. He had a falling out with the Perry Meridian team and transferred back to Center Grove, mid-season. The transfer rules forced him to sit out the rest of the season.
“There wasn’t too much going on with my situation at Perry Meridian,” Littell said. “I guess you could say it was more of some pet peeve type of stuff. The Perry program is great, but the way the practices and the program went, I didn’t think it was what was right for me and my family.”
When the IHSAA ruled Littell ineligible for the remainder of his freshman season, he took the news pretty hard. He sat in the stands and watched Viduya, a guy he had beaten twice that season, claim the state title.
“That was painful,” Littell said. “I’ll be honest, I cried a lot. I wanted Alex to win it though. If I wasn’t out there, he’s the guy I was cheering for.”
Things went from bad to worse for Littell his sophomore year. He suffered a knee injury playing youth football (tore his ACL) when he was in elementary school. It always bothered him, but he was able to wrestle with it. By his sophomore year the knee started hurting so badly he couldn’t wrestle. He went to his doctor and was told that not only was his ACL torn, so was his MCL and he had damage to his meniscus. He would need a season-ending surgery.
“I felt defeated when I found that out,” Littell said. “First I lost my freshman season and then I was told I wouldn’t be able to wrestle as a sophomore either. I thought I’d be able to push myself and get back in time for the tournament, but my doctors didn’t want that.”
For two years Littell has been hungry to showcase what he can do on the mat. For two years he watched others have the success he felt could and should be his. Two years of physical and mental pain escalated to a boiling point in the young wrestler, and now, as a junior he’s able to unleash on his opponents. He is currently 17-0 on the season and ranked No. 1 at 120 pounds. He has pinned every wrestler he has faced up to this point.
“Braydon is a special type of athlete,” Center Grove coach Maurice Swain said. “He has a combination of speed, power and great technique that you just don’t see in most high school athletes. And, he loves the sport. His speed is off the charges. His power is off the charts.”
Littell is the type of wrestler that lives for the big moments. He gets excited when he gets to wrestle the better opponents. He will likely get the chance to see Crown Point’s No. 3-ranked junior Riley Bettich at the Al Smth tournament.
“I’m super excited to wrestle him,” Littell said. “I’m pumped for it.”
More so, he’s excited for the chance to show Indiana what he has to offer on the mat.
“I feel, for sure, like I have something to prove to the state,” Littell said. “I feel people sort of forgot about me. I want to show them what I can do. I’m hungry. Sitting out two years and watching others go on to have success has just forced me to work harder. It motivates me.”
Littell isn’t alone. Coach Swain is also excited to showcase his star junior.
“We think the world of Brayden here,” Swain said. “I think he’s just a special athlete. I’m excited to see him compete and excited for the state of Indiana that has heard his name but not got a chance to see him wrestle. I’m excited for them to see what he can do.”