CHS Wrestling earned its 13th IHSAA Regional Championship title on Feb. 6 and advanced to IHSAA Semi State Championship meet on Feb. 13 with the Greyhounds earning 3rd place as a team. Heading to IHSAA Wrestling State Championship today and tomorrow at Bankers Life Fieldhouse, the Greyhounds hope to win first place for the first time in history.

Wrestler and Senior Sam Bublick said CHS Wrestling has improved throughout his involvement in the program.  He said in 2015, only one CHS wrestler made it to State, and only two in 2014. While last year the greyhounds placed 19th at Semi State, Carmel’s team saw major improvement this year by placing third with four athletes who qualified for State Finals.

Head Coach Ed Pendoski said the key to the team’s success this year is in their periodization of training.  “In November and December, we tell everyone in the program that their mind and body belong to the team, and we’re going to train their minds and their bodies until January and February, when we give them their minds and their bodies back,” Pendoski said.

Wrestler and Sophomore Jack Williams agreed that the development of practice is important to the victory of the team, but individually he has prepared for the IHSAA meets by focusing on technique as well as mental attitude. Williams said, “Since I’m in heavyweight, I’m in better shape than a lot of the guys I wrestle. So, when they get tired, I try to snap them down and go behind to get easy points.  After (the match), if I win, I feel really good, but if I lose, I mentally go through the match and think about what I did wrong and how I could’ve fixed that to win.”

Pendoski said as the program grows, the team puts more expectation on how they practice. “We take the positive things we do and enhance them, and eliminate the negative techniques.  If the team has done a good job training their bodies to where they’re ready to compete physically, then technically if they’ve trained their bodies correctly, we can attack spots where the other teams have holes.”

Bublick said some techniques he uses when facing his opponents are to start on a knee or increase the pace and put pressure on them to take them down. He said being on the mat is hard to explain because wrestling is so different from any other sport.

“It’s exhausting because you use every muscle in your body, and it’s kind of a unique feeling because it’s an individual sport, and the outcome, whether you win or lose, is more emotional,” Bublick said.

Williams described being on the mat as “a little weird.” “Normal sports,” he said, “it’s like you and a bunch of other people, but in wrestling, it’s just you, and your mistakes are magnified.  But it’s also really cool since I’m usually the last match of the tournament, I can hear the crowd cheer really loudly.”

Pendoski said that with the leadership of the seniors, this year of CHS wrestling stands out with the fellowship of the athletes. “This team has been a lot of fun; the boys have come together and made workouts a good place to be. Our sport is hard, and as the culture of wrestling grows, this group of kids has really dialed in on how to practice, and that’s the part that we’re really excited about,” he said.

Williams said his favorite part of CHS Wrestling is the environment and the people on the team. “Everyone has fun and wants to be there,” he said.  As a sophomore, he looks forward to the years to come.

“Being a sophomore and wrestling on the very low end of heavyweight is difficult because I’m wrestling people 30, 40, 50 more pounds than me; but, when you find success as a sophomore in heavyweight you know that you’ll probably find even more success as you get older and stronger,” Williams said.

Bublick met his goal of advancing to next weekend’s IHSAA State Finals, alongside seniors Jarrod Smith, Nick Fox, and Sam Hipple.  Bublick said next year he will miss competing with the team and wearing Carmel on his chest.  “We’ve really grown a lot as a team and we’ve really improved the togetherness of the program.  We’ve grown a sense of how we practice and how we prepare for tournaments,” he said.

Pendoski said he tells his seniors that beyond their trophies and their names on the walls, how they practice is the footprint they’ll leave behind for the athletes that follow.  

“We’re really excited about what this group of seniors has done, on the mat and more importantly culture wise. We look forward to the next generations of Carmel Wrestling, and it’s really a result of what these seniors have contributed.”