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sstark

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    sstark reacted to Y2CJ41 for a article, Bulldog Breakdown: Key Pieces Help Elevate Brownsburg Wrestling Under Snyder   
    By Anna Kayser
    If you’ve been an unfamiliar passerby in the town of Brownsburg, Ind. over the past seven years, one of the first things that might catch your eye are the purple street signs – deep purple markers adorned with a bulldog, two on each corner if you’re lucky.
     
    At least, that’s what I noticed as I drove through the small – but not too small – suburb of Indianapolis en route to the fourth official practice of the 2022-23 IHSAA wrestling season, with no prior knowledge other than what was scribbled on the notepad next to me.
     
    One thing I hadn’t taken note of prior to passing the “Welcome to Brownsburg” sign on Highway 139, and something that might give any other small-town Midwesterner the same familiar wave of recognition: The residents of this town about 30 minutes northwest of downtown Indy live and breathe Brownsburg High School athletics.
     
    The 2021-22 Brownsburg wrestling team was nothing to snub at. The Bulldogs went 18-1 in duals and extended their program-record streak to eight consecutive Hoosier Crossroads Conference championships. Jake Hockaday led the lineup with the first state title by a freshman in school history, continuing Brownsburg’s reign of crowning one champion each year since 2016. More on him later – I promise.
     
    But that was last year, and while the result is indicative of the journey to get to where they are now, it’s not the full story. What better place to begin than at the beginning – when the Bulldog wrestling program transitioned from a bottom-of-the-barrel finish to an HCC Championship in two years, to an IHSAA State Championship in four.
     
    “Regardless of what it is, I have high expectations,” Brownsburg Community School Corporation Superintendent Dr. Jim Snapp said. “My experience has been if you want to have a state contending team, you [hire a coach] who has done it before.”
     
    After beginning his head coaching career at Mishawaka High School – a time in which he led the program to three consecutive top-two finishes and a pair of championships in 2008 and 2010 – Darrick Snyder found himself as the subject of a coaching inquiry almost 150 miles dead south of the place where he was a Northern Indiana Conference champion and state place winner.
     
    From Snyder’s point of view, there were a number of perks to coming to Brownsburg. And when his wife asked him about the wrestling team’s recent lack of success, he saw the potential to upgrade the team to something special.
     
    “Yeah – but there’s no reason [for that lack of success],” he said. “All the pieces are there.”
     
    Immediately, things began to shift. During Snyder’s first two seasons, the Bulldog program went 36-12 in duals and was crowned 2015 HCC Champions. Of course, that success comes not entirely from the corner but from the center of the mat itself – it’s a combination of what happens behind the scenes and the performances under the spotlight.
     
    That first piece of the puzzle, the one that is encapsulated in the public eye each time the mats are rolled out: The athletes.
     
    The success of that 2015 team was boasted by a pair of wrestlers that took center stage on the IHSAA State podium come February – Ty Mills (106), Brownsburg’s first finalist since Mark Meunier’s title in 1977, and Nathan Walton (170). As four-year place winners at the state tournament, they were two of four key athletes named by Snapp as being difference-makers in raising the heights of the program.
     
    None was more instrumental under Snyder’s tutelage, however, than All-American and two-time NCAA Division I Championships qualifier Brayton Lee, Minnesota’s current starting 157-pounder. A leader that, without Snyder’s drive to create a pipeline from younger levels into a high school program the town could be proud of, might never have donned the purple Bulldog in the first place.
     
    “[My family] knew that [Snyder] was a good coach and had a lot of success, but we weren’t that familiar with him,” Lee said. “We went to Brownsburg for a high school tournament to meet up with him when I was in middle school, and we just talked. He was just supportive and said that he would help me to become the best wrestler I can possibly be. We were really excited about Snyder, he pretty much sold us [on where the Brownsburg program would go].”
     
    Not only is building the high school program a key part in escalating success, but also what feeds into it. The implementation and management of a strong program for middle school students ensures that development and love for the sport occurs at a younger age.
     
    “We were fortunate enough to get some kids [like Lee] that came here because of him, and he’s worked on [building up] the middle school program – kids want to come here, kids want to stay here,” Snapp said. So, we’ve got this interaction of developing the feeder program and kids that, if they’re going to wrestle in the Indianapolis area, they [want] to come to Brownsburg.”
     
    With two established wrestling academies nearby – Contender’s Wrestling Academy in Brownsburg and Red Cobra Wrestling in Avon – growth through both the school program and external coaching elevates athletes even higher.
     
    Lee, a product of Red Cobra, was a good example of how development can skyrocket through that extra effort and help outside of a school program. What the Bulldogs standout star lacked early on, however, was the team aspect.
     
    “It was definitely different, just because I had never been on a team before – I had just wrestled on my own,” Lee said. “I had grown up going to our very intense wrestling club and on both sides, practices were tough. I appreciated and respected that. [Snyder] was always making us do lots of tough stuff intertwined with wrestling.”
     
    Prior to Lee’s first of three IHSAA state titles in 2016 – a year in which he, along with five other state placers, led the charge on Brownsburg’s IHSWCA Dual State championship and IHSAA state runner-up finishes – the Bulldogs had only crowned two individual champions in school history.
     
    “We were always focused on the next day,” Lee said. “The first time I won, it was awesome, and I was grateful for it – but there was always a team aspect. I wanted to win with our team, and that idea of winning definitely pushed us. I think me winning helped bring other guys along. Knowing I was kind of a leader, knowing that my success was inspiring other guys on the Brownsburg wrestling team made me want to keep pushing.”
     
    For Lee’s career specifically, the results of the drive to win as a team came quickly. His second title at 145 pounds saw seven Bulldogs on the IHSAA podium and a franchise-high three finalists – Mills and Blake Mulkey included as runners-up – to lead Brownsburg to its first IHSAA state championship in school history.
     
    That influx of high-performing athletes jumpstarted Brownsburg’s rise to the top of high school wrestling in central Indiana.
     
    “You put those kids together – we had a core of four, good kids – and Darrick coached up other kids around them,” Snapp said. “That started [a stretch] of us winning the conference every year for the last eight years, we’re in the strongest athletic conference in the state of Indiana. Our wrestling team has dominated. It hasn’t even been close.”
     
    The second piece to the puzzle, where Snapp, the administration and coaching staff as a whole come into play, is the support Snyder continues to have behind him.
     
    The best example? The wrestling room at Brownsburg High School, built during Snyder’s reign as head coach and designed by Snapp to help raise the standard of the program and accommodate the growing numbers of the extracurricular.
     
    “I knew I was going to have [Snapp’s] support on just simple things,” Snyder said. “My first year here, I wanted to take a fan bus to individual state… and I was told no [by the athletic director]. I said, ‘This is a really important to the program. These guys need to watch this event, it’s incredible.’
     
    “I called Jim, and every year [since], just like most teams, we get to take a team bus to state.”
     
    The backing from Snapp and the administration is a means to an end in shifting the culture not just in the Brownsburg wrestling room, but in the town that loves its high school athletics.
     
    “That first year, there wasn’t really anyone there for the kid that was wrestling [at state]. When you win, you want to look up and see a bunch of purple and sit with those people between rounds,” Snyder said. “We’ve really tried to change that around, anything like that.”
     
    It also extends to the actual competition and helping those wrestlers reach the mats at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
     
    In order to develop the athletes coming to Brownsburg or growing through school programs the Bulldogs support, the level of competition needed to continuously be raised.
     
    “When I first got here, no program did any overnights or anything out of state,” Snyder said. “I went to [the athletic director] and told [them], ‘I’ve got to get out of Indianapolis’ – I was tired of wrestling the same teams over and over again, and then we got to the point that there weren’t many teams in our area that would be competitive.”
     
    This upcoming season, the Bulldogs’ schedule includes the Walsh Jesuit Ironman Wrestling Tournament from and the Crown Point Invitational – Crown Point defeated Brownsburg 178-105 in the 2022 finals, setting an IHSAA record for the largest margin of victory by a team champion by over 20 points – on back-to-back weekends in December.
     
    That elevation in competition level allows wrestlers to face some of their biggest challenges early and prepares them for high-pressure situations come February.
     
    “I always tell [our guys] that our schedule is not meant for them to go undefeated,” Snyder said. “If you do, that’s great, but we’ve set up a schedule where we’re going to take some losses. That took administrative support to be willing to allow us to do overnights, to allow us to go out of state.”
     
    Pushing athletes beyond their comfort zone to prepare them for future career hurdles is a common theme in Snyder’s coaching style, something that is on record in helping wrestlers reach their full potential.
     
    And, well, maybe no one can attest to that better than a Big Ten starter.
     
    “I think just his competitiveness and him pushing us every day helped me,” Lee said. “He helped push me past my comfort zone a little but more than maybe I would myself, and that’s really the main purpose of a coach. Snyder knew I wanted to be great, and he helped me move into a little bit more uncomfortable territories which is important for any athlete, especially when you’re trying to go to the next level.”
  2. Like
    sstark reacted to Y2CJ41 for a article, #WrestlingWednesday: Dickens and Lee are looking for gold   
    By JEREMY HINES
    Thehines7@gmail.com
    Matt Lee and Eli Dickens are practice partners in the Evansville Mater Dei wrestling room. They are good friends, they are both juniors and they are both ranked No. 1 in their respective weight classes. The similarities don’t end there.
    The two are soft spoken and humble. They have extremely similar voices, so much so that it’s hard to differentiate them if talking on the phone. They both have a 3.9 grade point average.
    “On the wrestling mat they both like to push the pace,” Wildcat head coach Greg Schaefer said. “They are both students of the sport and they love fine tuning techniques. They are both competitive. They don’t like giving up anything. They just push each other and the other guys in the room.”
    In fact, the two are so similar that coach Schaefer has a hard time finding any differences.
    “I don’t really know how they are different,” Schaefer said. “There isn’t a lot of differences that I know of. There are a lot more similarities than differences.”
    Lee also struggled to think of a difference.
    “We are pretty similar,” Lee said. “We are really good friends and practice partners and our styles are similar.”
    Dickens was the only one that could offer up some differences between the two.
    “I guess the main thing that separates us is our setups,” Dickens said. “He is more of a high crotch guy and I’m more of a getting ankles and sweep singles kind of guy.”
    Lee, who is the younger brother of Indiana legends Joe Lee and Nick Lee, is currently 30-0 on the season and holds the top ranking in the 145-pound class. He finished seventh the last two years in a row and is hoping to climb the ladder more this year.
    “It was a good feeling to place at state,” Lee said. “But you can’t be truly satisfied unless you get first. It’s always good to be at the top. I was happy to place, but I wanted more. I was hungry for more. That pushed into this year and drives me.”
    Being the younger brother of Nick (won state in 2015, now wrestles for Penn State) and Joe (won state in 2016 and 2017) hasn’t put a lot of pressure on Matt.
    “People always talk about the pressure of being their younger brother,” Matt said. “I don’t feel that pressure. I talk to them and they give me advice. They help me as much as I allow them to. I keep them as a source of information. I don’t pry them to learn everything they know, but if I need help I can always go to them.”
    Matt said watching Nick wrestle for Penn State makes him nervous.
    “I’ve heard how it’s hard on parents to watch their kids wrestle sometime and watching Nick wrestle I know what they are going through now,” Matt said. “I didn’t understand that before. I get more nervous for Nick’s matches than I do for any of my own.”
    Dickens has not placed in state so far, but he did qualify last year. This season he defeated former No. 1 ranked Elliott Rodgers 4-3 and that catapulted him to the top spot in the 152-pound weight class.
    “It was pretty amazing to see that I was ranked No. 1,” Dickens said. “I try not to think of it too much, but it was exciting. It gave me more confidence and belief in my ability. I knew that I could beat anyone, but that just solidified that idea in my head.”
    One big key for Dickens is that he doesn’t have to worry about his weight like he did last season. He feels that has helped him to be stronger and not focus so much on the weight aspect of the sport.
    “I had a huge growth spurt last year where my body wanted to grow mid-season,” Dickens said. “This year I’m wrestling up three weight classes and I feel so much healthier.”
    Matt is currently 30-0 on the season and Eli is 31-2, with both of his losses coming to out of state wrestlers.
    Both Matt and Eli are hoping to wrestle in college, but neither have decided where they want to go.
    Matt enjoys watching television, playing games and watching movies on weekends when he’s not wrestling.
    “I’m a pretty average kid,” he said. “Probably my favorite thing to do is eat, but you can’t do a lot of that during the season. I just like to try to find fun in the small things. I’m just normal and I like hanging out with my friends.”
    Eli enjoys going to his Bible study on Wednesday’s with his youth group.
    “I feel that it really builds me spiritually and gets my mindset right,” he said. “I focus on God and the bigger picture.”
    The two will compete Saturday in the Evansville North regional.
    “I don’t want to sound boring,” Schaefer said. “But they are both just awesome kids that work really hard. I hope they are able to accomplish their goals.”
  3. Like
    sstark reacted to Y2CJ41 for a article, #MondayMatness: Bellmont, family tradition carries on with Ruble brothers   
    By STEVE KRAH
    stvkrh905@gmail.com
    It’s an Indiana tradition unique to wrestling and two brothers from Bellmont High School will follow in the footsteps of so many Braves that came before them.
    Qualifiers for the IHSAA State Finals will parade into Bankers Life Fieldhouse before first round of the tournament Friday, Feb. 15 and Jon and Isaac Ruble were be representing their family as well as their storied mat program.
    “That’s pretty exciting, especially for their parents, Becky and Joe,” says Bellmont head coach and former state champion Paul Gunsett.
    “They’ve done a lot for those two. They’ve traveled everywhere for these two to wrestle. They’ve earned it with all the time and effort they’ve put in.”
    Jon Ruble is one of Bellmont’s captains and often leads the squad in during warm-ups at practice.
    “He’s a leader in our program,” says Gunsett of the older Ruble boy.
    “He’s been real reliable for me. He’s pretty special. He spends a lot of time with our younger kids. He spends more time with them than he probably needs to. He’s helped groom them and made them better.”
    Freshmen Carter Thomas (120) and Dominic Litchfield (113) are Isaac aka Ike’s usual workout partner during practice.
    Like many wrestling families in and around Decatur, Ind., there is a mat legacy. Joe Ruble is one of Bellmont’s many State Finals qualifiers, competing at Market Square Arena in 1991. The boys’ uncle Paul qualified for State and blew out his knee the week of the meet and was unable to compete.
    Joe Ruble’s uncle Kent Buuck was a a standout Braves wrestler. His best friend was Bill Schultz (uncle to Becky Ruble). When Buuck died in a highway accident before his senior year, Schultz dedicated his training to Buuck and became the second state champion in Bellmont program history, winning the IHSAA heavyweight title in 1977.
    The Braves’ first state winner was Phil Lengerich (138 pounds in 1969). Gunsett reigned at 135 in 1988. On 10 other occasions, a Bellmont wrestler has ascended to the top of the victory platform —Chris Mahlan (185 in 1979), Brent Faurote (98 in 1981), Paul Baker(130 in 1988), Tim Myers (119 in 1993 and 130 in 1994), Jason Baker (125 in 1996), T.J. Hays (152 in 1996), John Sheets (103 in 2000), Matt Irwin (135 in 2006) and Billy Baker (215 in 2009).
    The Braves reigned as team state champions in 1987, 1988 and 1994 and were runners-up in 1979, 1999, 2006.
    Jon Ruble (36-6) took an early 2-0 lead and made it stand in beating Rochester senior Drew Sailors in the Fort Wayne Semistate championship match.
    “I got that two-point lead and I’ve been riding leg stuff all year so I put the legs in and tried to ride it out and possibly get turns,” says Ruble, who was a state qualifier at 145 in 2018. “(Winning the semistate) means a lot. There’s such a big difference between second place and first place. You’re setting yourself up for that state run.”
    Both Ruble brothers —#DosRubles on social media — placed first at the Jay County Sectional and Jay County Regional. Isaac Ruble (36-6) placed second at semistate.
    Sharing the season and the State Finals experience with his sibling is something the older Ruble brother does not take lightly.
    “This is the only time we get to wrestle together,” says Jon Ruble.
    “This means the world to me. “We talk about it all the time.”
    What does Jon see in Isaac the athlete?
    “He’s a competitive kid,” says Jon Ruble. “He always thinks he’s the best.”
    With his family history, Jon Ruble was destined to be a wrestler.
    “I had no other choice,” says Jon Ruble. “Being a part of Bellmont history means the world. They’ve had such a great program forever. To be a part of that tradition is amazing.”
    The youngest Ruble brother has soaked up his learning opportunities in his first high school season.
    “I learn things and try to get really good at the — like firemen’s carries,” says Isaac Ruble. “It really helps me out.
    “There are certain things (Gunsett) gets on me about — like keeping my head up — and I fix them.”
    Given the age and size difference, do the two brothers wrestle against each other?
    “I can’t hang with him,” says Isaac. “He’s pretty good.”
  4. Like
    sstark reacted to Y2CJ41 for a article, #WrestlingWednesday: Hall is back for more as a sophomore   
    By JEREMY HINES
    Thehines7@gmail.com
    In a town named after the Roman goddess of the dawn, Aurora, a new wrestling star is rising in the south east corner of Indiana.
    South Dearborn sophomore Bryer Hall was a relative unknown last season. He put together a successful freshman season, and by the end of the year had worked his way up to No. 16 in the state rankings at 126 pounds. When the state tournament rolled around, people started to take notice of the newcomer.
    Hall rolled through his sectional as a freshman, winning every match by pin. He was just as dominant in the Richmond regional. He won his first round with a pin in just over a minute. In the second round he took on ranked senior Trevor Ragle (47-4) and pinned him in just 1:09. Then, in the final he went up against another talented wrestler in Centerville freshman Gabe Phillips, who is currently undefeated on the year and ranked No. 5 at 138. Just a little over two minutes into the match Hall injured Phillips shoulder, and Phillips was unable to go on. That injury ended the season for Phillips.
    Then, to start out the semistate, Hall injured another wrestler with almost the same move. It wasn’t anything intentional, but the injuries rattled Hall.
    “I didn’t want to hurt anyone,” Hall said. “It was upsetting that I ruined someone’s season and they could have went pretty far in the tournament. I thought it would be tough to go back and use the move because I didn’t want to hurt anyone else. But once I started wrestling again, instincts just took over and I had to get that thought out of my mind.”
    Hall won his ticket round semistate match 16-8 and then secured his biggest victory of his young career. He defeated former state champion Alec Viduya 11-5 to advance to the semistate championship.
    “We were hopeful that Bryer could get to state as a freshman,” South Deaerborn coach George Gardner said. “But we thought it might be a long shot when he had to go up against returning state champion Alec Viduya. But Bryer really took it to him in that match and handled that match much better than I thought he would.”
    Hall didn’t have enough in the tank to defeat Ethan Smiley in the final, who cruised to an 11-2 victory.
    Hall ended up placing sixth in state. He had wins over Kyle Lawson and Brycen Denny, but lost big to Cayden Rooks (tech fall) and Christian Meija (17-5).
    This season Hall is hoping to not have those big letdowns.
    “He ran out of gas in the semistate,” Gardner said. “Hopefully that won’t happen again.
    This year Hall is undefeated. He has stepped on the mat 33 times and each time had his hand raised in victory. He has moved up three weight classes and is currently ranked No. 2 at 145 pounds.
    “It felt pretty good to get noticed in the rankings for my hard work,” Hall said.
    Hall’s style of wrestling is difficult for others to scout. He calls himself a funky wrestler.
    “I am hard to figure out,” Hall said. “I’m just naturally funky. I move where my hips feel they should go.”
    That funkiness is especially helpful in scramble situations.
    “Bryer is a tremendous scrambler,” Gardner said. “He doesn’t have a signature takedown. He just makes things happen. He’s really hard to scout because he doesn’t do the same thing very often.”
    Hall could potentially see Warren Central’s Antwaun Graves in the New Castle semistate semifinal. If so, that is a match that could be particularly interesting. Hall won the regular season battle 4-3.
    “Anything can happen Saturday,” Gardner said. “He has to go out and wrestle his best each match.”
     
    Hall said his biggest wrestling accomplishment so far was placing fourth at Fargo over the summer at 138 pounds. He is hoping to top that with a state title this year.
    “My goal is to go undefeated and win state,” Hall said. “Last year I was nervous. This year I’m coming in a lot more confident.”
     
  5. Like
    sstark reacted to Y2CJ41 for a article, Allred is headed to the Big Red   
    The top ranked 195lber in the state an our top Junior wrestler, Silas Allred, has committed to wrestle for Nebraska. Allred, hailing from Shenandoah just north of Indianapolis, will join four-time state champion Chad Red on the Husker roster. 
    Allred is ranked anywhere from 5th-7th by all the national ranking services and atop 30 prospect for the class of 2020. Currently he sports a spectacular 90-2 record over his three years that includes a 5th place finish at state in 2018. His long list of national accolades includes placing 3rd at the Super 32 this past fall, a Cadet Folkstyle National title, and a 4th place finish in Cadet Greco-Roman. 
    Allred had plenty of offers from many of the top programs in the country. The programs on his final list included state schools Purdue and Indiana along with North Carolina State and Maryland. Currently he is undecided on a major, but is leaning towards a business degree at Nebraska.
    Projecting at 197lbs for his collegiate career, Allred stated he was drawn to Lincoln for a plethora of reasons.
    “I chose Nebraska because it felt like home. After visiting a few colleges, no place made me feel even close to the way Nebraska did,” Allred said in response to his commitment. “I knew in my spirit the search was over. Not to mention the coaching staff and RTC is absolutely incredible. It is the perfect fit for my athletic and academic goals.”
    Good luck to Silas as he pursues not only his state goals, but national and international goals thi off-season.
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