By Brock Sisney (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
REEDS SPRING — The Reeds Spring wrestling teams open their 2020-21 season with nine returning starters from last season.
The Wolves open Dec. 1 against Nevada and the Lady Wolves only have one competing wrestler this season, junior Lexi Harris.
Reeds Spring will be led by juniors Easton Byrne (138 pounds) and Jakob McCracken (145), who respectively finished 22-20 and 28-16 last season.
“Our most standout leaders for the team would have to be Easton Byrne and Jakob McCracken. Both are very hard workers who strive to be the best they can be,” Reeds Spring head coach Chris Lowe said. “Our goal is to get better each time we wrestle. Be competitive and find that overall family environment. This team needs to find its identity.
“We are a close knit group that works hard and strives for success. Staying healthy and being tough. We have to work hard each and every day. Push beyond our limits and wrestle tough competition.”
Headed into a new season, it appears that Reeds Spring will be able to fill all 14 weights and avoid giving opponents six points on any forfeit in duals.
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The Wolves have Rocky Love (106), Kyden Clary and Zack Preston (113), Zaiden Fuentes and Daniel Settles (120), Tyler Nance (126), Gabe Sipe and Shane Thompson (132), Wyatt Rogers (152), Evan Wilson (160), Nick Rogers (170), Sebastian Michaud (182), Couper Johnson (195), Eben Crain (220), and Spencer Michaud (285) in addition to Byrne and McCracken at the varsity level.
McCracken and Wilson each finished third in the Big 8 Conference at 145 and 160, respectively. The Wolves’ lone state qualifier from last season, 120-pound Chase Johnson (28-14 overall record), graduated, but Nance qualified two seasons ago as a freshman. Nance missed the second half of last season.
Lowe said that his freshmen Clary, Fuentes, Qwentin Lancaster, Sebastian and Spencer Michaud, Preston, Taylor Yartz, and Hunter Spence will infuse more good competition into the Wolves’ wrestling room.
Additionally, Thompson and Couper Johnson are two wrestlers returning to the team that Lowe expects will make an instant impact on Reeds Spring’s fortunes this season.
The Wolves’ schedule begins with Nevada and continues with the Bolivar Tournament, a triangular with Logan-Rogersville and Marshfield, a quad against Hillcrest, McDonald County, and Springfield Catholic, a quad against Buffalo, Osage, and West Plains, the Kinloch Classic and the Monett Tournament, a triangular with Cassville and Hollister, the Branson Tournament, a dual against Waynesville, a triangular with Butler and El Dorado Springs, and a quad against Branson, Lebanon, and Parkview before the start of postseason competition.
The COVID-19 pandemic will provide a new challenge for this winter.
“It has made nothing set in stone,” Lowe said. “We have to be flexible to roll with the punches this year and just adapt as it happens. We put a very strong emphasis on cleanliness and keeping our kids safe, but from day-to-day and hour-to-hour it could change that quickly.”
