Ashton in action
‘Livid’ when he fell short of the 2020 state meet, LaPorte’s 106-pounder hit the road
The instant that Ashton Jackson’s arm was raised Saturday, he already was looking ahead.
“I was ready to get on to next week,” Jackson said. “To get down to Bankers Life (Fieldhouse) and get to that finals match.”
The LaPorte sophomore wasn’t caught up in the moment, even though he’d just beaten top-ranked River Forest junior Jeffrey Bailey in the 106-pound championship match at the East Chicago Semistate.
That’s because Jackson — ranked No. 7 at 106 by IndianaMat
at the end of the regular season — has goals beyond the semistate round.
Some of that forward thinking can be attributed to Jackson’s lack of success at the 2020 semistate meet. He lost a 2-0 decision to Hobart freshman Trevor Triana and finished his freshman season at 35-8.
“I was livid,” Jackson said. “But I had the mindset of putting my head down and getting back to work.”
That meant he was going to find wrestling opponents wherever he could.
“He went all over the country wrestling a lot of the top competition,” LaPorte coach Louis Kuzdas said. “That’s one of the big things we pushed at him. If you don’t wrestle against the level of competition that you’re ready to compete at, it’s hard to get there.”
When Jackson wasn’t at tournaments, he spent countless hours in the wrestling room at Elite Athletic Club in Lake Station, where he participated in drills with Bailey.
Jackson said the two developed a friendship outside of wrestling that did leave him with mixed emotions after his win Saturday.
“We were practice partners all summer,” Jackson said. “But you know that you’re there to compete and to win.”
That win also added to the Jackson family legacy. His father, Adam, was a state qualifier for the Slicers at 135 pounds in 1997 and was the first state qualifier of Kuzdas’ coaching tenure at LaPorte. Kuzdas used the word “tenacious” to describe both father and son.
But there’s a lot more to Jackson’s success than that aggressive approach, Kuzdas said.
“He’s a thinker,” Kuzdas said. “You have to do certain things in wrestling so many times before it comes naturally. With all the offseason stuff and the more situations he’s been put in, he’s had the opportunity to better himself. He’s growing physically, mentally and technically.”
Competing at the state meet on Saturday will be a new experience for Jackson, who has attended it the past four years as a spectator.
“It was a painful trip last year,” he said.
But conversations with his father and his coach have Jackson believing he’s ready for the big stage.
“We’re always getting told that the state tournament is just another tournament,” he said. “It’s a big deal, but you have to focus on that ‘another day at the office’ mindset. Otherwise you’re going to freeze up and not wrestle your best.”