Highland High School boys, girls wrestlers look build with youth in 2022-23 season
Youth will be the operative word that defines both the Highland High School boys and girls wrestling teams this season.
The Bulldogs return only two seniors this winter with Aiden Conrad and Will Jones representing HHS coach Shorty Ohren’s most experienced competitors.
“I only have two seniors, two juniors and the rest are sophomores and freshmen, so we’re really young (this year),” Ohren said.
Overall, Highland has eight grapplers back who will compete in matches as sophomores including Tyson Rakers (132 pounds; IHSA Class 2A sectional qualifier last season), Ashton Zobrist (195 pounds), Gavin Merkle (106 pounds), Thomas Mitchell (160-170 pounds), Cody Trowbridge (145-152 pounds), Liam Kirkenbrock (160-170 pounds).
Conrad will wrestle at 170 to 182 pounds while Jones is set to compete at 138-145 pounds.
“Those are going to be my wrestlers that I’m depending on (to score points) this season,” Ohren said.
Among the newcomers expected to contribute for HHS, sophomore Ethan Greenwald — who excelled at linebacker for the Bulldogs football team in the fall — has looked impressive in practice and figures to get experience at 185-192 pounds.
According to Ohren, the club should be strong in the lower to middle weights and able to consistently score in those matches.
As far as team goals go, HHS wants to be the best they can be individually and improve upon their recent fourth and fifth place finishes in the Mississippi Valley Conference Super Duals meet at Mascoutah in late January.
“The only thing on my list is we do well in conference,” Ohren said. “The last couple of years we’ve finished four and five in conference and we’d like to do a lot better and I think we could be close to it (this year).”
Highland girls wrestling team
Additionally, for the second straight season, Highland has a girls team and the club has grown from one wrestler last season in August Rottman to five this year.
Rottman, who placed third in the 170-pound division at the inaugural IHSA state girls tournament last season, will lead the Lady Bulldogs grapplers in 2022-23.
Rottman will again compete at 170 pounds while freshman Ayla Duschang will wrestle in the lower weights.
Newcomer Kyla Rushing has been strong in preseason workouts and freshman Olivia Fenton is set to wrestle at 125-130 pounds.
“We’re working on them (as a group) to get them experience,” Ohren said. “August is the only one with experience of the group.”
Ohren said the main goal this season is to continue to build the numbers in the program towards what the boys team has at this time.
“It’s the second year of the program for having the girls team, so the four or five that we’ve got now is better for building the program than just the one (wrestler) we had last year,” Ohren said. “And the one we had last year (Rottmann) was a tough one. So, we’re trying to get more girls into wrestling and really build the program up.”
Highland opens the season with a quad-match at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 22, at Pinckneyville with Effingham, Centralia, and Pinckneyville.
