After being a 5A favorite at the previous state wrestling competitions and coming up short, the Maize High boys wrestling team finally captured their first state championship on Saturday, Feb. 25, at Hartman Arena in front of a crowd of over 1,000 people.

Out of the 11 Maize wrestlers competing in the event, championships were won by senior Connor Padgett at the 175 pound level and Ayden Flores at 215 pound level. In addition, freshman Talon Verbeck finished in 2nd place, senior Clayton Bowers also finished in 2nd place, senior Nakaylen Shabazz also took 2nd in his weight division.

During the season, the team had to compete against other schools in order to work their way to the top and qualify for state. As they got closer to the championship, their confidence grew with many long win streaks in their own weight class.

“We felt very confident, we were ranked number one, pretty much the entire year. Uh, we won against the 2nd and 3rd ranked teams several times, beat them several times, just showing that we were meant to be at the top so, just after that felt very confident going into state,” said freshman wrestler Talon Verbeck.

Throughout the year, the team ran into many obstacles, both mentally and physically. They’ve had to find ways to overcome these challenges and learn from them. This included gelling as a team with younger varsity wrestlers getting to know experienced varsity wrestlers and becoming a real team.

“I think the biggest obstacle would probably be team unity, as we’re a very diverse group of individuals and wrestlers and we sometimes get caught up in our emotions and focus too much on ourselves,” said assistant coach Brandon Ball.

For some wrestlers, instead of overcoming these challenges, they had to adapt to competing with them. This was the case for team captain, Clayton Bowers, who had gotten injured before the championship.

Bowers was able to physically and mentally push through his injury and still grabbed runner-up in his weight division. 

“Yeah, it kind of made me a little less confident, just cause it affected me all year,” said Bowers.

Despite the injury, Bowers continued to impress with his performance. With so many noteworthy performances to help the team grab a state title, Coach Ball was still amazed at Bowers’ ability to still wrestle through a major shoulder injury.

“The main wrestler that really impressed me was Clayton Bowers. He’s a senior, he’s our team captain so he ends up in the finals, which is amazing; but, he did that with a torn labrum rotator cuff, and what impressed me most is you always know what you’re gonna get from Clayton,” said Ball. “He works his butt off in the room and on the mat, he doesn’t show any sign of weakness.”

The experience of winning the championship was an emotional one for the Eagles for more than just the wrestlers. Coach Ball will always savor the experience of the wrestling team’s first state title.

“There is a lot of emotions, a lot of excitement, excited to see them finally be able to put all that hard work and effort into a state title and just being a proud coach.”