By RYAN WALKER
The Norwell wrestling team defeated South Adams 38-37 on a special senior night while remembering a former classmate.
In 2018, Gabe Norris died in a farming accident. The Norris family was honored before the match and received a written speech over the loudspeaker and was given flowers by each member of the senior class.
Nearly everyone in attendance wore green, specifically John Deere green, his favorite color. Norris would have been a senior on the team this year and also ran cross country and track.
Head coach John Johnson coached and also taught Norris in seventh grade and instantly had a connection when he met him.
“It’s kind of hard to express in words for the people that didn’t know Gabe and didn’t know the family really well,” he said after the match. “It’s impossible to communicate how special the kid he was. I just loved him so much.”
Including Norris, the Knights had eight seniors represented on their last home match at The Castle: Connor Dreiband, Hudson Kahn, Tyler Luther, Stuart McCabe, Cayden Smithley, Nicholas Stephens, and Max Walker.
Johnson said his bond with this senior class is special because he’s known them since they were young, teaching them at Norwell Middle School and watching them develop as athletes and young men.
“For me as a coach, just seeing these guys start with me in sixth, fifth grade, when they’re 12 years old — not hit puberty yet, little scrawny, punks, and just to see them develop into men and fighting through injuries and making weight,” he said. “Just really enduring this sport, and to do it for seven years, that really does make people into men.”
After the ceremony was over, it was time to wrestle. Two schools are known powers in the Adams and Wells County area.
South Adams had the early advantage and stayed there for the majority of the night with as high as a double-digit lead.
That was until five more weight classes left, and Tyler Luther put the team on his back at the 195-pound match.
The senior was in quite the battle in the first period with Starfires’ junior Clayton Trausch. Both had a competitive round going and it looked to be one that could come down to the wire.
Members of the Knights’ coaching staff were shouting instructions to Luther and, at one point, urging him to play more off an offensive style.
Right after those call-outs, Luther went into attack mode. He got in a position to lift up and carry Traush, hurling him to the ground for a takedown. Not too long after, the Knights gained six points for a pin.
“That’s — not the only thing. That’s really what secured the win for us,” Johnson said about Luther’s pin. “We preach from day one, wrestling a lot of these matches, they’re decided by a point or two. Those are falls, or you’re not getting pins, or pinning your opponent. It’s about how you win and how you lose … Tyler Luther tonight, I told him at the end of the second period, ‘we need a fall. You need to get some offense, and you need to get him down,’ and he did it, so he did a great job.”
The team’s response may have been what Norwell needed. Following Luther, the Knights would earn three more pins in a row from Ethan Michael, Hudson Kahn, and Hunter Douglas to clinch 38 team points and a win on senior night. South Adams pinned the last two matches, but ultimately the win was decided by one point in favor of Norwell beforehand.
A victory against South Adams meant a little bit more to Johnson, who personally coached and taught the Starfires’ head coach, Jesse Gaskill, at Carmel. The head coach gave nothing but respect to his former student.
“Hes done a really great job over at South Adams,” he said referring to Gaskill. “They were a real solid team, and we were just lucky enough to edge ‘em’ by a point. I wish them the best, but they’re a great team.”
Norwell will be at the Northeast 8 Conference meet starting at 9 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 21, at New Haven High School.
Individual winners for Norwell were:
• Hunter Douglas over Brendon Sprunger by fall at 106.
• Connor Dreiband over Wyatt Mann by fall at 132.
• Cody Cox over Nathan Plattner by major decision 12-4 at 145.
• Eli Behning over Luke Bauman by major decision at 170.
• Tyler Luther over Clayton Troush by fall at 195.
• Ethan Michael over Thomas Murphy by fall ar 220.
• Hudson Kahn over Bryan Roll by fall at 285.
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