The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Lake’s McKeon perseveres
Many, if not most, of the people around the world look at the turning of the new year as a chance to start something anew.
Whether it’s a new diet, a new workout regimen, being better with money or what have you, the arrival of new year means a renewal of hope.
Count Lake Catholic senior Luke McKeon among those who were ready to turn the page on 2017 and embrace the promise of 2018 with open arms.
“Yeah, 2017 wasn’t my year. It really wasn’t,” McKeon said.
In September, McKeon’s grandfather, Frank McKeon, died. A few months later, on Thanksgiving, grandmother Sienna McKeon passed away. McKeon’s mother, Mary, was diagnosed with breast cancer.
On the first day of scrimmaging for his senior year of wrestling, McKeon broke a bone in his left hand while drilling at Brecksville.
“I even lost my dog of 12 years — Mac — this year,” McKeon said. “He was a mutt, a retriever/border collie mix. But he was my best friend. “It was a bad, bad year.” So when McKeon, a senior 152-pounder on the Lake Catholic wrestling team placed second this past weekend
at the 57th annual Catholic Invitational Tournament at St. Ignatius, he didn’t dwell on a tight 5-3 loss in the championship match.
He viewed it as a positive step. One much more positive than the way 2017 seemed to treat him.
“It feels great,” he said. “I just like being out there with my team and getting back at it.”
The second-place finish at the CIT comes on the heels of a strong performance by him and his teammates at last weekend’s Jimmy Cook/Steve Galeazzo Duals, hosted by Lake Catholic. The Cougars dedicated the tournament to McKeon’s mother, Mary.
The team and staff wore pink shirts throughout the day to honor Mary McKeon’s courageous fight.
“She’s doing good,”
McKeon said. “She’s doing radiation now. She finishes up with that and I think she’ll be good.
“That was important to me to get back for that,” he said of the dual-meet tournament dedicated to his mother. “I wore that shirt again for the CIT Parade of Champions to show support for mom and what she means to me.”
The loss of Grandpa Frank McKeon and Grandma Sienna McKeon hit the son of Mary and Frank McKeon — a former wrestling legend at Ledgemont — hard. The voice of the teenager softens when he talks about the battle his grandmother waged against ovarian cancer.
“She fought that for years,” McKeon said.
When wrestling practice started, that was a way for McKeon to release some of the stress built up from everything
else that 2017 had put on his plate.
And after going 0-2 in the Division II state wrestling tournament as a junior 138-pounder, McKeon was ready to get to serious work to get his senior season in wrestling off to a good start.
Until he promptly broke his hand, which put him on the shelf for six weeks.
“It was a scrimmage at Brecksville, the first livego,” he said. “I sprawled on it and landed funny. I knew when it happened. I heard it snap. But I kept going. But I couldn’t do anything with it.”
Over the past handful of weeks, McKeon did everything possible short of live wrestling, working on cardio-vascular workouts and conditioning primarily with some light weight-lifting.
“I even wrestled a little with the coaches to get back
into it,” he admitted.
Coach Eric Lakia raves of the contributions McKeon made to the program, even when he was injured.
“He had as tough of a year as any person could have or could go through at a young age,” Lakia said of McKeon’s 2017. “He handled it with class and has been nothing short of a leader for us. He’s a captain for our team. He brings an element to our program that we need.”
Lakia praised McKeon for his performance at the CIT, which included two pins and a 7-5 sudden victory in the semifinal round before losing a tight 5-2 match to X-xaiver Weathersby of Cincinnati Elder in the title bout.
“I know Luke would have liked to have gotten the win,” Lakia said. “But he is still getting his feet under
him. He wrestled great against a tough kid. It’s just a matter of time until he’s back to 100 percent and where he wants to be.”
Down the road, McKeon said he hopes to wrestle at college and perhaps major in business or finance.
After a rough 2017, the arrival of 2018 holds plenty of optimism for the young Lake Catholic leader. He said he is going to ramp up his workouts to seven days a week — “No breaks,” he said — to make sure his senior year of wrestling ends with him having given all he had.
“I think about all that’s happened before every single one of my matches,” McKeon said. “I know my grandparents are up there watching over me. And my mom is always there watching me. That’s what’s most important to me.”