Cadet National Team

On June 25th, 2005 Texas USA Wrestling’s Cadet Dual Team made history. They are the first ever Greco All-Americans for the Lone Star state. The team was comprised of 26 elite wrestlers from all parts of Texas. The event was held at the Kansas City Expo Center in Kansas City Missouri on June 23-27 and hosted 26 states in the competition.

The venue held 14 mats, giving each team quality matches in a timely manner. Teams competed in pools against a number of other squads. The top two teams from each pool advanced into a championship pool, with an opportunity to capture the team title. The other teams went into a consolation bracket. Team Texas (#13 seed) pool consisted of Team Washington (#2 seed), Team Virginia, Team Wyoming, Team Iowa (#5 seed), and Team Nebraska (#12 seed). This is where Team Texas being seeded the forth best team in their pool won five out of six duals to move into the championship bracket and insured us the All-American status thus making this team the first ever Greco All-American team for Texas!

First up was Team Washington. Team Washington consisted of one returning Greco Cadet national Champion and several Greco Cadet AA’s. All the boys wrestled tough but I believe after this dual meet all the wrestlers got to see what good Greco wrestling is all about. Team Washington won 48-21. Up next for Team Texas was Virginia and Wyoming. Team Texas wrestled well and began what they didn’t know at that time was their winning streak to become AA’s. Team Texas beat Virginia 52-16 and Wyoming 47-22. Next up was the #5 seed Iowa. Both teams exchanged wins going into the 130 pond match. This was the match that I believed won the dual. Jimmy Peterson losing 9-3 in the second period catches his opponent on his back and gets the pin. What appeared to be a two point team victory for Iowa ended up a four point team victory for Team Texas. This was a six point swing. Next, Johnny Koepp and Luke Ashmore beat highly ranked individuals by a pin and tech fall, respectively. Sealing the victory came at 189 when the coaches decided to move Robert Prigmore up from 171. Robert pinned his opponent in 15 seconds. Team Texas wins 39-31 and continues its winning streak. The final dual meet to determine AA status was against Nebraska. Again, this dual meet began just like Iowa but continued through out the meet with both teams exchanging wins. Both David Reyes and Justin Armstrong won critical matches by the scores of 5-4 and 3-1, respectively. Johnny Koepp had a close scare with the score 0-0 at the break and hurt with a groin injury, he finished the match with 8 consecutive points and won 8-0. The dual meet winner was still undecided until Robert Prigmore walked onto the mat at 171 pounds. Robert again sealed the victory for Team Texas with a pin in 45 seconds. Team Texas at that point just became the first ever Texas Greco AA’s.

Saturday morning comes around and the championship bracket matched us up with Team Michigan, Team Missouri, and Team Kansas. First up was Michigan. Team Texas won 9 out of 17 matches but ended up losing a nail bitter by the score of 37-31. This match ended Team Texas winning streak and took a little momentum away from us. The next two opponents, Team Missouri and Team Kansas, completely beat up on us with winning scores of 53-16 and 46-24. After losing the three matches in the championship bracket, Team Texas was matched up against Team New York for 7 or 8 places. This was the ninth dual meet in two days. At six on Saturday night the boys were extremely tired but fought hard the entire match. Team Texas took a commanding lead 11-1 after three matches. Unfortunely, Texas was only able to win four out of the next fourteen matches. The result was a loss by the score of 38-32. One real exciting match was at 112 pounds with Adam Purcell. Adam was down by 5 with one minute remaining and was able to tie it up with some exciting throws and with 20 seconds left ended up scoring seven more points to win by seven. Great match. Team Texas ended up with a 4 and 5 record and a eighth place finish which labeled them as CADET GRECO ALL AMERICANS.

I want to say that I am very proud of the 26 wrestlers that competed on the Greco team. They all put their hearts and soul on the mats and that is all we can ask for. I want to add a special thanks to Matt Parker our 189 pounder. Matt weighed in at 181 and the coaches used him 90% of the time at 215 pound weight class without him ever complaining. Without these kinds of commitments from the wrestlers, Team Texas would have not been AA. In addition, to the team making All-American, Team Texas also had one wrestler go undefeated in the Greco duals, Johnny Koepp. This accomplishment earned him a spot on the Cadet Greco All-Dual Team. Congratulations Johnny.

Again, great job to all the wrestlers and the coaches look forward to seeing how everyone does at the Cadet Nationals in Fargo.