This year’s Cannon Falls Wrestling team is quite a bit lighter this year in more ways than one. Never fear however, as these mat rats are more than meets the eye.

Head Wrestling Coach, Dudley Flodeen, felt good about his young squad when he said, “When we go hard, nobody wants to give anything to anybody else.” His team is a lean, tough, and agile group mainly consisting of freshmen and sophomores.

“We’ve lost ten seniors this year,” Flodeen replied when inquired about the strength of the team. Most prominent of the lost seniors was Clay Broze, two time state champion in the 220 weight class. This leads to the main weakness of the team this year, the lack of big men.

This year’s group of wrestlers is smaller than usual. Flodeen noted that, “We’re hurtin’ up in the top end [of the weight classes].” The lack of men to fill the heavyweight slots results in a forfeit in those slots which means precious points are lost that are required to win meets. Flodeen thinks that if he could round up a few heavier guys to fill those spots, his team, “could go deep into the section tournament.” For now Flodeen is working with what he’s got in his group and he’s pleased with what he’s seeing.

Jodi Strain

Flodeen said this first meet will give his singlet suitors some confidence. He believes his squad is going to get some wins and hit their stride, and he thinks they did. The team performed admirably with thirty points lost to forfeits, a significant number; they won versus two teams and lost to three. He was, “very happy with their performance.”

Ryan Epps who is projected second in his weight class in double A won all of his matches with the exception of one. Epps was pitted against a number one ranked wrestler in triple A, quite an elite wrestler. The score in the match was four points for Epps and nine points for the elite in the match, impressive for facing a player of that caliber.

Epps puts lots of hours into training; he adds, “I stay late after practice and do extra drilling.” His reason for doing this is to meet his goals of being the section and state champion, fine goals indeed. Epps tries to meet his goals by using his homework, “After practice I go home and start my homework before I eat because then if I have to cut some weight it takes my mind off of being hungry.” This tactic is ingenious because he utilizes his homework to benefit him rather than it being a burden.

Jodi Strain

The wrestling team has made the halfway point in their season and two things have stuck out clearly: the team has fantastic individual talent but there aren’t enough team members. The talent the team has is impressive. In their last invitational they finished  seventh out of eighteen teams with roughly half the weight classes filled; with two first place finishers in their weight classes and one third. However Coach Flodeen repeatedly notices the impact of empty slots, “[The team] can handle not getting any points, it’s the points that we’re giving up that really hurt us.” Due to the fact that they have only half the weight slots filled and each forfeit gives the opponeJodi Strainnt six points, it’s very difficult to earn wins. Flodeen notes that “we’ve been ahead in most of our matches” (the meets start at the lowest classes and go up from there) but once they hit the heavier weights, where their ranks are virtually nonexistent, they falter. That’s not to say the team will not be successful once they reach sections. The team has one fourth ranked member, one second ranked, and one number one ranked wrestler along with what Flodeen believes are some quality sleeper players, wrestlers that are skilled but are unknown by other teams. They are likely to be able to reach the section tournament or beyond. The team has met the halfway mark and, according to their coach, the first portion of the season is just practice, and that now is when they need to step up.. This appears to be easily achievable because when the section tournament rolls around the corner quality trumps quantity and this quality based team rather than a quantity team certainly has what it takes to see it’s  wrestlers through the final stretch.