Bell battles into the record book
Levi Bell’s recent victory at the UIL wrestling championships was worth more to him than the gold medal around his neck.
A senior at Cedar Park, Bell occasionally had glanced at the names listed on the wall inside the wrestling field house — champions from days gone by. Almost all of them winners at the district or regional level.
The lone exception was Jami Moore, who won a girls state title at 215 pounds in 2009.
“Now my legacy will be on that board — forever,” Bell said while walking through the field house Wednesday. “I’m the first male state champion in Cedar Park history.”
On Saturday at the UIL meet in Cypress, Bell joined Bowie’s Christian Moreno and Noah Gochberg of Vandegrift as the only Austin-area wrestlers to pin down gold medals.
“Before the season, my goal was to compete in state and place in the top six,” Bell said, adding that he surprised himself by finishing on top of the Class 5A boys 220-pound weight class. Bell defeated the state’s top-ranked wrestler at 220 pounds, El Paso Eastlake senior Joshua Molinar, in the semifinals. He then pinned Alex Martinez, a San Antonio Highlands senior, in the second period.
Before Saturday, Bell might have been best known at Cedar Park for being a vital part of the Timberwolves football team. A defensive end, he was named the District 19-5A defensive lineman of the year last fall after totaling 75 tackles.
A year ago, Bell’s journey toward a possible state championship took a terrible turn during a postseason meet. Leading 10-1 in a regional semifinal, he broke his left ankle with just 10 seconds to go in the 195-pound match after his opponent scored on a double-leg takedown. Although he won the match and qualified for state, Bell was quickly eliminated from his bracket, dropping his first two matches.
“Once the pain had ended, you could tell that he so wanted another chance to compete for state again,” said Nick Asmus, Cedar Park’s third-year wrestling coach.
After wrestling at 195 pounds as a junior, Bell gained 25 pounds before his senior year. He wanted to bulk up because he was shifting from linebacker to the defensive line in football. In his new role, he helped the T-Wolves reach the third round of the Class 5A, Division I football playoffs.
Bell finished his senior wrestling season with a 43-3 record. The losses came in the season’s first month, two against a Class 6A opponent, Westlake’s Randall Pulido, who won a bronze medal at the state meet.
Five wrestlers represented Cedar Park at state, including Levi’s younger brother Ben, at 285 pounds.
Bell’s family, his four teammates and about 20 Cedar Park fans stayed at the meet to watch him wrestle in the final on Saturday night. That included his stepfather, Matt Pogue, who wrestled during high school in Oklahoma City and later while in the U.S. Army.
Pogue said wrestling helped create a bond between him and Bell.
“I was holding back tears every time I talked to him during the day,” Pogue said, thinking back to the close of the state meet. “I couldn’t express how proud of him I was.”
As Kovar explained the high expectations in a town whose high school has won multiple state titles in myriad sports, he motioned to the walls inside Thorndale’s cozy gym, which could maybe squeeze in 200 fans. Think Hickory High, except with hip-hop playing during a recent Bulldogs practice.
One banner recognized a Thorndale football program that won state titles in 1989, 1994 and 1995. Another pointed out that the school won baseball titles in 1996 and 2005. A third honored the late Jeff Lieberman, who led Thorndale to back-toback Class A state championships in boys basketball in 2007-08.
In the coaches’ office, a sign stretched across a wall tracked the combined achievements of the boys and girls basketball teams over the decades. Forty district championships, 29 bidistrict titles, six regional crowns and — for now — those two state titles.
Kovar, Thorndale’s fifthyear coach, and his players embrace the tradition of success. A year ago, the Bulldogs donned throwback jerseys while playing in front of players from the state title teams during a reunion weekend. Ty Prince, senior captain of the current Bulldogs and a standout point guard, occasionally plays one-onone against Everett Hall, a forward on the state championship squads.
“We see those guys around a lot,” Thorndale senior Mason Fisher said. “They’re always encouraging us, saying, ‘Hey, it’s time that y’all go get a title.’”
Thorndale lost just three seniors from its 2016-17 team that was 27-10 and played in a Class 2A state semifinal. The Bulldogs went into this season as the second-ranked team in the 2A state poll compiled by the Texas Association of Basketball Coaches, and they’ve spent most of the year at No. 1.
The Bulldogs will enter this weekend’s regional tournament at Canyon High School in New Braunfels with a 31-3 record. Their only losses came against Jarrell, ranked No. 1 in Class 3A; Lipan, ranked first in Class A; and Salado, a Class 4A squad.
“We’ve played as tough a schedule as a 2A team can get, and the kids have really handled being No. 1,” Kovar said. “We have a veteran club with a lot of maturity.”
No one has matured more — both physically and mentally, according to Kovar — than Prince, who earned all-state honors as a junior.
Prince started for Kovar as a skinny, 6-foot-3 sophomore but has grown into a 6-5, 220-pound force at the point. Prince has retained the ball-handling skills he developed as a shorter player and still brings the ball upcourt for the Bulldogs, but Kovar will move him around in an effort to wreak havoc on a defense.
“He definitely creates some mismatches,” Kovar said. “Probably 80 percent of our half-court offense goes through him, and we’ll put him anywhere. He still handles the ball well, he passes extremely well, and he’ll find the open guy.”
Prince ranks second on the team with his average of 17 points a game, and he also averages nearly 10 rebounds and seven assists. Kovar gives credit to his team’s triple-double threat for assuming a leadership role for the Bulldogs, something that didn’t come naturally to the quiet Prince.
“He was the third guy as a sophomore, and he liked that role,” Kovar said. “But now, he’s the main guy, and he’s taken to it more and more. He goes hard every step; he gets after every rebound.”
Despite the increases in his size and strength, Prince said his primary role remains making his teammates better and, accordingly, making the team better.
“I’ve played point guard my whole life,” he said. “It’s still about getting guys open shots and making plays.”
And getting Thorndale one more title.