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Boys, girls each have 3 with previous state finals experience
BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
Tristan Wilson had already dedicated himself to wrestling when he was recruited to continue his career at Manchester University.
He met Bryce Roberts there.
He asked Roberts where he was from. Roberts told him he was from Rochester and that he was planning on moving back home after graduating. Roberts then asked Wilson if he would like to join him.
Why not?, thought Wilson.
Years later, Wilson has taken over for Clint Gard as the new Rochester wrestling coach. Wilson had been an assistant on Gard’s staff. He spent much of his time overseeing the girls program.
Now he is in charge of all girls and boys wrestlers.
At 29, he takes over a boys program that has won four straight Three Rivers Conference titles and four straight sectional titles and that sent five wrestlers to last year’s state finals.
They finished second at the Penn regional behind the host Kingsmen and then placed third at the East Chicago semistate last year. They also won the Class 1A team state duals at a raucous RHS gym last year.
Rochester won back-to-back regionals and semistates in 2022 and 2023. Prior to 2022, Rochester had never won a regional or semistate.
Wilson inherits a two-time state qualifier and one-time state placer in Brant Beck (165), a two-time state qualifier in Layne Horn (132) and a state qualifier in Wyatt Davis (190).
Wilson speaks in no small terms of Gard, who was inducted into the Manchester University Hall of Fame in 2008 and the Indiana High School Wrestling Coaches Association Hall of Fame two months ago.
Wilson said that 20 boys wrestlers came out but that they will forfeit the 106, 113 and 120-pound weight classes. But in addition to Horn, Beck and Davis, they have another ranked wrestler in Declan Gard, who moved up from 175 to heavyweight.
“I think that we had a good offseason,” Wilson said. “A lot of kids put in a ton of work this summer. We run summer weights, so they were in the weight room all summer. This was the first year that I’ve kept track of how many matches everyone has gotten over the summer, and we got three that got over 30 matches this summer. We have one kid on our team that got 40 and then a lot of other kids that got in the high teens to 25-ish. I’m happy with the turnout that we had. Obviously, I’m the coach, so I’d love to see every single person here, but this isn’t everyone’s number one sport, so I just have to take what I get for a little bit of that.”
Adjusting to different girls’ styles
Wilson also said seven girls came out for wrestling. Four-time state qualifier Grace Hiroms graduated, but 2024 state placer Laine Peppler, 2024 state qualifier Makenna McKee and 2023 state qualifier Lilly Gerald are all back.
Peppler, McKee and Gerald all have different styles, according to Wilson. Peppler is known for her strength, McKee is known for her athleticism, and Gerald had a background in combat sports like jiu jitsu that she has adjusted for wrestling.
“That is probably the most difficult part, and I learned this from Gard and my college coach,” Wilson said. “But each kid, they’re going to have their unique style. If I try to conform each kid in the style that I like to wrestle, that’s not going to be the best for everyone. So I’m trying to meet all the wrestlers where they’re at.”
Both Gerald and Peppler were ranked in the top five in the state at the start of the season, according to IndianaMat.com.
Rochester has been assigned to the Columbia City sectional, which will occur on Jan. 3.
Other girls on the team include Rylin Strasser, Kyra Doran, Lexi Haughs and Elise Enyart.
The boys lineup
On the boys team, with forfeits at 106, 113 and 120, the smallest wrestler on the team is Konor Fugate at 126. Wilson called Fugate “the most improved wrestler from last year to this year” and added that he gained from showing up to all team activities over the summer.
Horn made state at 106 in 2023 and 126 in 2024.
“He does things very, very hard and very, very aggressive,” Wilson said. “That’s part of that mindset. I like Layne’s chances of being on the podium this year. He, just like all of our other kids, they put in a ton of work. He’s put in the work. I think, yeah, last year, you could call it a letdown. I think that just lit a bigger fire for him now. I’m really excited for him. I think his mindset is much more relaxed and not so tight is what I would say.”
Reed Perry moves from 113 to 138.
“This is his second year (on the) varsity,” Wilson said. “He’s going to be alright. He just needs to stick with it and keep trying to develop his attacks and moving his feet.”
Freshman Matthias Field, who changed his last name from Jackson, will wrestle at 144. Wilson said he has “God-given ability” that he’s starting to “hone all of that into good techniques for him.”
Junior Braddock Behling (150) had not wrestled since he was a seventh-grader prior to this year, but he said that Behling had “wrestled his whole life” and that his father had gotten him into wrestling. Behling went to Rochester Middle School but spent the previous two years at Culver Community High School before transferring back.
“He came back out for us,” Wilson said. “We didn’t really expect it. The best surprise so far.”
Navan Goodman moves up from the JV and will wrestle at 157.
“He’s showed a lot of potential,” Wilson said. “He just stays in good position, which really helps in wrestling. He kind of has a step up, but it was an open spot. He saw it. He wanted it. So he got there, and I’m really excited for his season too. He’s a good size for 157.”
Wilson said he considered having Beck move down to 157 but decided to stick with him at 165, where he is currently ranked No. 2 behind Hobart’s Aidan Costello.
“Smarter,” Wilson said of Beck’s improvement. “These freshmen and sophomores that come in, everyone’s so immature, and they have to mature as men, and they have to grow up. He’s grown. He is a great example of God-given talent that works extremely hard.”
Freshman Derek Wortley will wrestle at 175.
“He is a very hard-working kid,” Wilson said. “He just likes to put his head down and just go as hard as he can. Our goal as coaches now is to take that great aggressiveness and mold it like a sculpture. You just got to mold it so that the technique is most important, not how hard you hit it all the time.”
Davis, who was a state qualifier in 2022 at 113 and a semistate qualifier last year at 150, will wrestle at 190, though Wilson did not rule out a drop to 175 later in the year.
“He has not changed his style one bit,” Wilson said. “Wyatt when he steps on a mat is a different kid. If you talk to him, he’s pretty soft-spoken. He’s funny. It’s all jokes. But when he steps out on there, there’s a switch that flips in his head, and it’s go time.”
Mason Hisey, nicknamed “Big Guy,” will get his first varsity mat time at 215. He takes over for the graduated Alex Deming.
An offensive guard and defensive end on the football team, Wilson said Hisey weighed around 230 at the end of football season but is around 210 right now.
“He has a lot of height, and that is really exciting,” Wilson said. “Tall kids are pretty hard to find that aren’t really big. He has a very unique build, and with his length, it gives you a lot of leverage in some positions so he catches a lot of guys off guard.”
Wilson said that Declan Gard had stressful weight cuts last year to get to 175. Moving up to heavyweight this year to take over for state fifth-placer Brady Beck will eliminate that stress.
“Eliminating that entire aspect from it really just allows us to focus on the wrestling,” Wilson said. “From that standpoint, his practices have been terrific, drilling terrific. I want him to get a little bit lighter at heavyweight. I think above 245, 250, I don’t think that’s a solid weight for him because he made such a jump. I’d like for him to stay on the lighter side of heavyweight and just outwork guys with his motor.”
Hosting two regionals
Rochester will host both a girls wrestling regional on Jan. 10 and a boys wrestling regional on Feb. 8.
The IHSAA officially sanctioned girls wrestling in April, and this will be the first state tournament run under its auspices. Previously, an organization called Indiana High School Girls Wrestling ran the state tournament. Rochester hosted an IHSGW regional last year.
Unlike the boys, girls wrestling will not have a semistate. Like the boys, the top four in each weight class at each level of the state tournament will advance.
As for the boys regional, it is returning to Rochester for the first time since 2017. Rochester was moved from the Plymouth sectional to the Peru sectional starting in 2018, and they have traveled for their regional every year since.
They were moved back to the Plymouth sectional for the 2023-24 school year and participated in the Penn regional last year.
Wilson’s background
Wilson said he was born and raised in Flint, Mich. When a flier advertising for wrestling circulated through the Carman-Ainsworth School lunchroom when he was a third-grader, he said he thought it looked cool.
He came home and showed his father the flier. His father had himself once been a competitive wrestler.
“If you really want it, we’ll do this,” Wilson remembers his father telling him. “But it’s not what you think it is. I was in third grade. I was like, yep, let’s do it. He pushed me in the best way that he could. I went to a lot of different practices in that Flint area. Some really high-level wrestlers came from that area. … From then, I just fell in love with it.”
Wilson said he started wrestling “full time.” He said wrestling made him a better overall athlete, so he decided to try other sports, and he said he made a football all-star team and played on a travel baseball team.
Wilson said he was in the eighth grade when his family moved from Flint to Fort Wayne.
“After that season, we had to make the move,” Wilson said. “I was in a very bad part of Flint. One of my neighbors got their house broke into and got shot. And then my parents were like, ‘OK, we need out.’ So he asked for the transfer.”
Wilson said his family discussed one of two places – either Fort Wayne or somewhere in Kansas.
They decided on Fort Wayne because it was closer to Michigan where family members remained.
Wilson enrolled at Carroll High School in Fort Wayne. By that time, he said he wanted to go back to wrestling only.
“I knew what I wanted to do,” Wilson said. “I loved it. That’s the only thing I think about, and I just made the decision. I was going to cut all the other sports out and solely focus on that.”
Wilson was a semistate qualifier at 152 in 2012 and a state qualifier at 152 in 2013 before finishing sixth at state at 170 as a senior in 2014.
He wrestled at Manchester University and called his college career “very up and down.”
He said he enlisted in the National Guard and went through basic training and some military training after his freshman year at Manchester.
“When I came back from basic training, my military training, it took wrestling away, and it wasn’t an option, and then from there, that’s when that spark lit again,” Wilson said. “Because it’s hard going from the man placing at state, going to state, whatever, to immediately step in a room and be at the bottom. And I didn’t really know how to handle that. After that break, it gave me a life without wrestling, and I didn’t like it. So then, I was full-go back in.”
Manchester hired a new coach in Kevin Lake, and he said his results “slowly but surely got better and better and better.”
He said when he was in high school that he wanted to stay after practice and help the youth wrestlers. He also said he helped out “a couple of times” at Churubusco High School after graduating high school but before he was certain he was going to wrestle in college.
“I was like, ‘OK, I think I do want to be a coach,’” Wilson said.
Meeting Bryce Roberts and Clint Gard
At Manchester, he met Roberts. Roberts was a captain on the Manchester team and one year older than Wilson. Roberts asked if he would like to come to Rochester.
Wilson said he was an “open book” at the time.
“I was like, ‘Sure,’” Wilson recalled. “I’m going to be an assistant regardless. I’d rather do it with my buddy and a Hall of Fame coach than go somewhere else. So that’s how I got here.”
Wilson was asked how much of his coaching style comes from Clint Gard.
“Everything,” Wilson said.
Carroll has a current enrollment of 2,569 and is the 19th largest school in the state. Wilson said Gard helped him adjust his expectations for a wrestler at a school like Rochester with an enrollment under 500.
“Going from such a large school where we just won because we had so many kids, and we had varsity one, varsity two,” Wilson said. “Our varsity two teams would go compete at varsity events, so it was much like, if you want to wrestle varsity, you have to dedicate everything to it. Here you don’t. You don’t have to dedicate your entire life to be varsity. You just have to be willing. Then the concept of what being a coach changed in my mind.
“The biggest lesson that Gard has taught me is if you coach the individual of being a better human and doing the right thing when no one’s looking and not lying, not cheating, not stealing. … If you get them away from all those really, really bad habits, the wrestling will come along. … The only thing I focus on right now is trying to help these kids be better men and better women. From there, the success will take, and we’ll have a great season.”
Thinking of the future
Wilson noted that while they will be shorthanded on both the girls and boys teams, they have 52 middle school kids listed on FinalForms as interested in wrestling. That includes 17 eighth-graders, and he thinks that will wrestle on the high school team next year.
He said they have “hammers” in every grade from third through sixth.
Roberts, Damic Beck and Brady Beck will be on the boys coaching staff, and Gavin McKee has also helped, though he is expected to leave for military service. Abram Ferrara and J.D. Howard will be assistant coaches for the girls team.
Wilson was asked what he would like to tell parents and the community who might have hoped that their children would wrestle for Gard.
“Most things are the same,” Wilson said. “This is a bus that has been going for awhile. Yes, there is a new driver. We didn’t change anything on the bus. We know we have the guys that find the success. We know what it takes to reach that top level, to be a state champ, to be a state placer, a qualifier, semistate, to be on the varsity lineup. We all know what that entails.
“I would say, give me a chance. That’s it. Give me a chance with it. I feel confident in what I’m doing now. My coaches feel confident in what we’re doing. No, this is not the situation we thought we’d be in. But what do we teach our wrestlers? Are we going to just lay there and not get up from bottom? Or are we going to figure it out? That’s what we’re doing right now. We’re figuring it out.”
