Rochester wrestling state finals roundup: ‘I’m winding down:’ Gard plans to coach 2 more years

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

Rochester’s five state qualifiers pose on the floor of the Ford Center in Evansville before the IHSAA state finals Friday. Front, from left – Layne Horn, Grant Holloway, Brant Beck, Alex Deming. Back – Brady Beck. (photo provided by Paul Deming)

EVANSVILLE — Here’s a roundup after a long, chilly weekend at the IHSAA state wrestling finals, from the media room to the mat to the catacombs to the lobby of the DoubleTree hotel attached to the Ford Center:

Gard’s coaching future

Rochester coach Clint Gard said he plans to coach two more years. His son Declan is a sophomore who qualified for semistate at 175 pounds this year, and coach Gard said he would like to coach for the remainder of Declan’s career.

Gard, who turned 50 last summer, cited health concerns, and he said he has told athletic director Kevin Renie of his long-term plans.

“I’ll say it this way: I’m winding down,” coach Gard said. “This year, I’ve been very fatigued all season long – very tired, hard getting good sleep. Obviously, I’ve had a lot of issues with my kidney stones this year, more than I’ve ever had. I’ve had to rely on the kids and the team a little bit to get myself going. I’ve always been honest: It’s been harder and harder for me to get to practice. … It’s been work this year. I’ve always loved it, and I’ve always really enjoyed it, but this is maybe the first year where I’ve really felt like this has become more work for me.”

Without being specific, Gard said some “outside forces” have made coaching not as enjoyable. He also has said he has delegated more responsibilities to his assistants to help them prepare for the transition.

“I’ve said this, and I’ve been very honest,” Gard said. “When Declan graduates, that will be my last year of coaching. I’ve been very honest about that with my assistants and the kids. Because I’m also trying to prepare our administration and our assistant coaches for that time. So I’m not going to be one of those guys that after wrestling in our last state tournament when Declan is a senior and then all of a sudden be, ‘Oh, hey, by the way,’ … I’m not going to do that to people.”

‘It’s a little bittersweet’

Gard is in his third stint as Rochester coach. Combining the three stints, he has more than 20 years of head coaching experience. When asked, he agreed that the program has reached a higher level in recent years. The team had five state qualifiers this year, a new school record.

Only six schools had more state qualifiers than Rochester, but the Zebras had to settle for 21st place with 23 points.

“The last two days, I told my coaches last night, I said we brought five guys to the state tournament,” Gard said. “We broke another record. We’re going to have two place winners, a third place and a fifth place, which is a great way to end it. But there’s some disappointment because I felt like we left some wrestling out there on Friday night. … But I really thought we’d have four place winners. We didn’t wrestle real well last night. We didn’t handle the pressure, and we had that in a couple matches today where we didn’t handle the pressure. So while I’m very proud of what we’ve done again this year and winning a team state title, there is a little disappointment to this weekend. I thought we would wrestle better.

“I’m proud of our kids. We won another sectional against a very tough Plymouth team. We won another conference. New regional, but we wrestled pretty well at regional (at Penn). … We wrestled fairly well at semistate (at East Chicago). You’re talking about two completely different regionals and semistates, and our kids performed well, and we brought five. It’s a little bittersweet. I feel like we had a great season, but we just didn’t end it as well as we could have. That sticks at me a little bit. It doesn’t mean that I’m not proud of our kids or our program. Is that good that we’ve gotten to the point where we’re disappointed in our state tournament and how we performed? Yeah, our expectations are higher.”

Rochester senior Alex Deming consults with assistant coach Tristan Wilson (wearing glasses) and coach Clint Gard during his first-round match at 215 pounds against Indianapolis Cathedral’s Jackson Weingart at the IHSAA state finals at the Ford Center in Evansville Friday. Weingart won 3-2. Deming finished with 43 wins on the season and 150 for his career. (photo provided by Paul Deming)

Alex Deming

Rochester senior Alex Deming, a 215-pound senior, had an unusual first period against Indianapolis Cathedral’s Jackson Weingart in his first-round match Friday.

Deming grabbed Weingart’s right leg early in the period, but Weingart essentially hopped on one leg for the duration of the period and avoided the takedown. The first period was scoreless.

In the second period, Deming chose the bottom position, but Weingart chose neutral. That gave Deming a 1-0 lead. Weingart got a takedown to lead 2-1, but Deming came back to get an escape on a granby with four seconds left in the period to tie the match 2-2 going into the third period.

“I was coming hard out of the gate on that single-leg,” Deming said. “Two times, I was there for probably about a minute, and I just couldn’t finish it.”

Weingart chose the bottom position to start the third period. Deming chose neutral. That gave Weingart a 3-2 lead but essentially forced the match to be decided on their feet.

That also gave Deming two minutes to mount an offense, but he could not get the go-ahead takedown, and Weingart hung on for the 3-2 win.

“Just hard hand-fighting,” Deming said. “He was pretty good at collar-tying. I would say he was bigger and stronger than I was, so he was just kind of shoving me around. I just needed to work on some movement and then try to hit some shots but wasn’t able to, and that ended the match unfortunately.”

Gard called hand fighting Deming’s “Achilles heel.”

“He hand-fights well, but he’s never really developed some really good attacks off his hand fighting,” Gard explained. “He always used his athleticism, and that’s worked for him really, really well a lot of times. But there’s other times it hasn’t worked for him, and today was one of those. … In that third period, you’ve got to get some shots off, and he just couldn’t get them off.”

Deming started wrestling when he was 8 when he first attended Gard’s camp. He won 150 career matches.

“Wrestling is brutal,” Gard said. “Wrestling is a brutal sport. As much as I love it, it’s also very brutal and very hard. Watching Alex lose there and that be the end of a really, really, really good career, it’s hard to be on that side of.”

Gard later said on Facebook that he’ll never fully get over Deming’s loss.

Deming wound up making state three times and placed seventh at 195 pounds in 2023.

“I put in a lot of work into wrestling, I would say,” Deming said. “Wrestling has changed me as a human being. It’s taught me lots of life lessons, and I will definitely apply to this to the real world, and it taught me how to work hard.”

Deming said he was heading from the state finals to Wabash College in Crawfordsville for a football recruiting visit. He said he also had a visit to The Citadel, a military college located in Charleston, S.C., scheduled for this week.

“If I were to go to a military college, I wouldn’t play football because I would be doing military, ROTC stuff,” Deming said.

He said he has “a long list of relatives” who have served in the military, including Ryan Zimpleman.

“He was a Green Beret, and that’s what I want to do,” Deming said. “I want to be a Green Beret.”

Rochester sophomore Layne Horn, left, looks to take down Jay County’s Cody Rowles during their first-round match at 126 pounds at the IHSAA state finals at the Ford Center in Evansville Friday. Rowles won 9-5, ending Horn’s season. (photo provided by Paul Deming)

Layne Horn

Rochester sophomore Layne Horn lost 9-5 to Jay County’s Cody Rowles in his first-round match at 126 pounds Friday, ending his season at 44-2.

Horn and Rowles were tied 2-2 after one period when Horn got an escape and then a takedown on a scramble to go up 5-2.

But Rowles got a reversal and a near-fall to take a 7-5 lead going into the third period.

He got another reversal in the third period to close out the match.

“In the second period, I remember he headlocked me, and he got three (points for a) near-fall,” Horn said. “After he headlocked me, it was tight, and I just froze. I don’t know.”

Horn excelled from the top position all year, often turning his opponents with a wing combined with a half-nelson. Rowles, however, got three reversals from the bottom position.

“I couldn’t turn him,” Horn said. “He was strong. There was a lot of scrambling. I knew it was going to be a scrambling match. I knew he liked headlocks. But it happens. Everyone gets beat.”

Gard said Rowles’s first reversal in the first period “rattled” Layne.

“I just didn’t feel like Layne was the same after that,” Gard said. “I’m not sure why. I just felt like he locked up a little bit and stopped wrestling. He just didn’t fight through some positions that he normally fights through. … That’s something that he’s going to have to work on that we’re going to have to work on with him. You’re going to have some bad things happen to you in matches, and they’re not always going to go your way, but you need to keep making your own breaks, and you’ve got to keep battling, and I just felt like there were some spots in that match he just didn’t do that.”

In a Facebook post after state, Gard praised Horn for his dedication to wrestling and said that his loss made him “physically sick.”

Speaking after finishing third at semistate, Horn spoke of not having a target on his back this year, which was unlike last year, when he was ranked No. 1 at 106 for much of the year. Without that target, Horn wound up breaking Damon Hummel’s school record for pins and winning conference, sectional and regional titles again.

He said weight management was easier at 126 than it was at 106.

“I was more confident going into the season than I was last year being a freshman,” Horn said. “Knowing how the season was going to go and stuff like that. I think that being more confident and not having to deal with weight so much helps.”

It was a busy sports weekend for Horn’s family. His first cousin is Caston girls basketball point guard Madi Douglass. (Horn’s mother is the sister of Caston coach Josh Douglass.) He is also related to Caston senior Addison Zimpleman. The Lady Comets would go on to lose to Marquette Catholic 41-34 in a Class 1A semistate semifinal at Frankfort Saturday.

“I’m very proud of them both,” Horn said. “They put it in the time, and they deserve it. They really do. … I don’t know much about basketball. I’m not very good at it. They are.”

Rochester freshman Grant Holloway looks to the sidelines during his first-round match against Delta’s Jensen Boyd at the IHSAA state finals at the Ford Center in Evansville Friday. Boyd won by technical fall, ending Holloway’s season at 19-7. (photo provided by Paul Deming)

Grant Holloway

Participating in his first state finals, Rochester freshman Grant Holloway (106) lost in the first-round to Delta’s Jensen Boyd, who came into the match undefeated and ranked No. 1.

Boyd was already leading 4-1 after one period when he started going at a lightning-quick pace: He recorded eight takedowns and a near-fall against Holloway in a span of 1:35 before the match ended with Boyd winning by technical fall at 23-8.

Gard said Holloway was “overwhelmed.”

“I think the kid finally realized, ‘Hey, I’m bigger and stronger and probably a little bit better wrestler, and he just started overwhelming Grant,” Gard said. “And Grant’s got to do a better job. I know he’s a little bit smaller than the Boyd kid. You know, he tried some things in different positions that I thought he fairly well with, but when you’re smaller, the thing you’ve got to do is keep your feet moving and you’ve got to hold better position. When we’re getting snapped, we’ve got to circle and get back to our feet and face him a little bit better, and he just didn’t do a very good job of that.”

Holloway said he kept giving up his wrist, which is a no-no from the bottom position.

“He’s pretty good,” Holloway said of Boyd. “He definitely has long arms, and he’s really good at snapping you and moving really quick. Moving his feet, he’s really good at that, and he just doesn’t stop. He keeps the pace high.”

Holloway was the only one of Rochester’s five state qualifiers to be making his state finals debut. He was asked about the experience.

“I guess it didn’t really get to me until I walked out there today,” Holloway said. “Just trying to soak it in this time, so next time, I can come back better and place.”

Brady Beck cools off Coolman

Rochester senior Brady Beck (HWT) started off his state finals with a 7-3 win over Leo’s Isaiah Coolman. He actually gave up a takedown and trailed 2-1 in the second period but soon got a reversal and went back ahead 3-2.

Brady said that his match against Crown Point’s Paul Clark in the semistate final was good practice for how he wanted to get out from the bottom position against Coolman.

“He threw a leg in,” Brady said. “Obviously last week against Clark, I got some practice with legs. I’ve been working on it all week preparing for that. He threw that leg in, and it was right where I wanted it. I blocked it with both thighs. Caught that ankle and just swam out and got my reversal. That gave me a lot of confidence back when I got that, and I was able to ride him out. I was a lot more confident going into the third, so that was a good thing to have.”

He got two near-falls in the third period using his hammer lock move and turning Coolman.

“I thought it was better than last week for sure,” Brady said. “I definitely need to pinch down on the chin more, so that he can’t roll through, making sure I get that fall for the team race. … Obviously, there are some big schools here, but team points are always important.”

Just as Brady Beck was winning, on the other side of the Ford Center, top-ranked Paul Clark of Crown Point lost 13-5 to DeKalb’s James Hartleroad, creating as deafening a sound as the Ford Center saw prior to the finals. Austin Hastings of Noblesville, another top 10 heavyweight, also lost his first-round match.

Brady Beck as a leader

Gard was asked where Brady Beck ranks as a leader among wrestlers he has coached.

Brady Beck was usually partnered up in practice with Marshall Fishback in 2022 when Fishback won the heavyweight state title. Brady Beck finished sixth at 215 in 2022 and then assumed the leadership role after Fishback graduated.

“I don’t know,” Gard said. “Everybody talks about leadership at the high school level, but it’s really hard to get teenagers to be good leaders. But he ranks up there. Marshall is probably the best leader we ever had.”

Did Fishback’s leadership skills rub off on Brady?

“I think some of it did,” Gard said. “Or at least I hope that it did. Every kid’s got their own personality and their own way of doing things and saying things. Marshall was way different than Brady or Alex. Alex is more quiet.

“As much as (Brady) was hard on kids too, I think for the most part, for most kids that he worked with, he also helped try and build them up. A lot of people don’t see that, and he didn’t do that with every kid. But he did do that with some of our guys on our team, and he was a very good vocal leader mat-side during tournaments and dual meets and always trying to pick kids up and give them advice, and that wasn’t always the case. … It’s certainly been a learned skill for him.”

Brady has said that he wants to get into the HVAC trade and maybe own his own HVAC business. He also said he wants to get into coaching.

“When you’re going to own your own business, you’re going to have to learn to be a leader, so hopefully, some of these skills, he’ll use those and take them further,” Gard said.

Brant Beck doesn’t cower to Cowan

Matchups in the first round at the state finals rarely are rematches from earlier in the season, but Brant Beck drew Levi Abbott of Cowan in the first round, a foe whom he already defeated twice during the season.

Both of the previous matches occurred at Rochester. The first was a 4-3 win at the Rochester John McKee Memorial Invitational on Dec. 16, and the second was an injury default win on Jan. 6 when Abbott used all his allotted blood time trying to patch up a nosebleed.

This time, Abbott wore a mask over his face, but he still needed a brief blood stoppage.

Brant said he expected Abbott to try and collar-tie him and try to snap. He was ready. getting two takedowns and earning a 5-1 win. The first was an “elbow pass to a low single,” which resulted in Brant grabbing Abbott’s ankle and putting him to the mat. The second came on a counter.

“Pretty decent,” Brant said. “I knew it was going to be a tougher match because I’ve already wrestled him a couple times, and it’s always harder each time you wrestle the same person. I just had to stick to what I’m best at.”

Noteworthy

• New Haven’s Julianna Ocampo pinned Plymouth’s Alonzo Chantea in 5:46 in a first-round match at 106 on Friday. She became the first girl to win a match at the state finals, and she won another match in the wrestlebacks on Saturday. She finished sixth.

• Before the first match, the IHSAA holds a Parade of Champions, in which each school’s delegation is introduced and walks onto the mats. Ninety-nine schools had at least one state qualifier. After all the schools were introduced, the crowd gave the 224 wrestlers a standing ovation.

Public address announcer Chad Niccum then quoted legendary former wrestler Dan Gable.

“Once you've wrestled, everything else in life is easy,” Gable once said.

• There were two trainers wearing latex gloves sitting in chairs adjacent to every match throughout the weekend, waiting to pounce in case a wrestler began to hurt or bleed.

• The state finals were held in Evansville due to Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis hosting the NBA All-Star Weekend. It’s believed to be a one-year arrangement.