Highland wrestling team tries to readjust after IHSA moves season to summer session

It was a blast of news that hit Highland wrestling coach Shorty Ohren like a punch in the gut.

On Oct. 27, the Illinois High School Association (IHSA) moved wrestling season for Ohren’s Highland Bulldogs to the alternative summer season which begins April 19 after the sport was reclassified by the Illinois Department of Health (IDPH) as a high risk activity due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I got home from work and checked my email that night and I saw it (the news) and I didn’t have much of a reaction other than it could be real tough to field a team and have a season,” Ohren said. “The big problem with having it in the summer season is it’s going to force the two- and three-sport kids to choose which sport they want to do most at that time which could hurt our numbers for a team.”

From the start of school in late August until the last week of October, the Bulldogs had been conducting offseason conditioning non-contact workouts and lifting weights.

Ohren said the club has been active but the challenging part about the workouts is being limited during the time because of the no contact restrictions due to COVID-19.

The Bulldogs are allowed to have 25 workouts during the fall preseason workout period.

“My assistant coach has been having them lift weights and do things like that in the offseason but you can’t do any live wrestling or anything like that,” Ohren said. “We can work on moves but they can’t work with another guy. It’s hard to practice shadow moves when you don’t have anyone to counter moves with.

“You can only shadow stuff so long and then you need somebody else in there to counter and for every move, there’s a counter (move).”

As far as the rest of the semester goes, Ohren expects the club to hit the weight room each week until the holidays in December. Thenm after New Year’s, the Bulldogs will ease back into shadow work and individual drills as they wait to see what the new year will bring in terms of having a season in April.

Extra prep mixed blessing

The extra preparation work for the summer season is looked at as mixed blessing by Ohren.

“Everybody is going to get the same amount of time so we’re dealing with the cards we got and we’ve got to go with them,” Ohren said.

By far the most challenging part of the move to the truncated summer season for the Bulldogs and other Misssissippi Valley Conference wrestling teams will be getting enough wrestlers to participate and compete at that time of season since there will be baseball to contend with then and football players just coming out of the spring football season.

“All of our conference schools are going to be the same,” Ohren said. “All of the kids have got to choose what sport they want to do and what they are best at is what I figure they’re going to go with. It’s going to take the three-sport kids out of the program now.”

Coach skeptical over season taking place

Upperclassmen playing sports such as football or soccer may be lost to Ohren as well due to the scheduling shift.

“Especially if they’re upperclassmen because they get that spring fever and they don’t want to do anything (then),” Ohren said.

Ohren is hopeful but believes the chances are slim there is a wrestling season for the Bulldogs next year unless the pandemic is more under control by late April.

“I can’t see it until they get this (COVID-19) under control because we’re the closest contact sport in the whole school,” Ohren said.