Wolves get fresh beginning in wrestling

Heavener finished its first season with wrestling after coach Jack Armstrong started the program in November.

The Wolves had two grapplers with victories in the Class 3A East regionals, which were Friday and Saturday in Cleveland.

Jorge Lira and Alex Armstrong both went 1-2 in the regional. Bryce Shipman, Jerami Casteel and Lucas Corbin each went 0-2.

Coach Armstrong, who started the Arkoma wrestling program in 2021-22, described starting wrestling as a learning process.

“You’ve just got to start slow and start with the basics,” he said.

Smallers schools like Heavener and Arkoma competed against schools with significantly higher enrollment, like Sequoyah Tahlequah, Checotah and Okmulgee in their regional.

Then again, as Armstrong acknowledged that there is no such thing as small-school wrestling and pointed out that those from smaller schools have the opportunity to beat opponents from bigger schools if they make the most of their training.

“Some of the best wrestlers I’ve seen are from small schools,” Armstrong said.

Since wrestling can be more technical than physical in some moments, wrestlers learn at different paces, whether at the higher or lower weights.

“The really good wrestlers are the ones who are really physical, but also technical,” Armstrong said.

With the focus on training and maintaining weight to stay within a weight class to compete, Armstrong said wrestlers learn discipline.

“Maintaining weight teaches really good life lessons,” he said.

He added that while the wrestlers took time to grow in the sport, they competed well.

“[In] The matches where they got pinned, they didn’t give up easy,” he said.

The talent is strong for Heavener’s junior-high group, which finished seventh in its conference tournament. One standout is seventh-grader Gracie Shipman, who went 28-0, pinning 28 opponents.

“She’s going to be a special wrestler,” Armstrong said of Shipman.

Among its high-schoolers, Heavener filled eight weight classes during the regular season.

“That’s not bad for a first-year program,” Armstrong said.

Armstrong said a major benefit to starting wrestling is a higher mentality among offensive linemen on the football field.

“The selling point when you start wrestling at any school is toughness,” he said.

The hope will be that young linemen who wrestled, like freshman Jerami Casteel, as well as Travis Kincaid, who saw some competition, and junior Jacob Vickers, who practice with the team, but did not enter matches, will display that toughness on the football field that they practiced on the mat.