Mav wrestlers hoping for the best this season
There are few sports as intimate as wrestling, and with a pandemic still raging across the globe requiring everyone to stand six feet apart, wear masks, and wash their hands, it’s understandable that parents and schools have reservations about wrestling.
Even with those reservations, Anderson County is forging ahead with the wrestling season, hoping for the best.
“I think it’s going to look a lot different this year than in years past,” said AC Coach Matt Sloan.
“They’ve already cut the number of teams at a tournament we usually go to and moved the venue from Knoxville Catholic to Heritage High School because Catholic didn’t have enough space in their gym to do all the social distancing and stuff that needs to be done,” Sloan said. “They’ve requested that we make our matches and meets as small as we can, too. We used to have four or five teams at home matches, and they’re really discouraging that this year, so it’s going to look different for sure.
“We’re going to do our best to social distance and take whatever measures we’re told to take so we can have a season, but the best we can do is try to keep up with who is wrestling whom and try to limit the number of people they wrestle with in a single day and throughout the season. That way, if something were to happen and someone got it, we’d be able to limit who got contact-traced.”
When asked if there would be mask rules, Sloan said it’s not really feasible.
“There’s really no way you could go through a practice, let alone a match, with a mask,” he said. “Wrestling is so physically exhausting that I think it would be almost impossible to get through it. I think we’ll be all right, though.”
This is Sloan’s first year with an assistant coach, with that role being filled by Tate Holmes.
“He’s been running the room for me,” said Sloan.
“He wrestled for four years at Reindhart University, so he’s bringing some real high-level knowledge to our wrestling program. I’m excited about that. This is definitely a big step forward for us.”
The team’s only senior this year is Stone Cummins, who finished third in the state last year.
“You could make the argument that he was just as good as the best kid in the state, and he’s a senior, so we’re excited for him to have the chance to win a state championship. He wrestled the kid that won the championship and took him into overtime.
On top of Cummins, we’ve got Lukas Pruitt, a sophomore who’s been doing it a handful of years now. Connor Baird is another. Last year was his first year and he did really well for a first year guy. He’ll be ready to go this year as a junior. Another junior is Vandall Norman. We’re definitely young, though. Lots of sophomores and freshmen. We lost a good group of kids last year, including six seniors that all started for us. That’s always tough to replace, especially with our program being as young as it is. We’ve got a good group of young kids, though, with a big sophomore class. It’s a good group.”