Crane, Lewis lead Bruins

Wrestling is an individual sport. But being a successful team is a large part of having individual success.

The Rock Bridge Bruins wrestling team has a lot of talent returning from last season’s squad, namely Taylor Crane and Kyle Lewis. Both wrestlers qualified for the state tournament last season as sophomores. Crane took fifth place honors at the 135-pound weight class while Lewis made it to the final eight at the 130-pound weight class before losing.

For coach Brook Harlan, a key to this season is having his team build off the successful performances of Crane and Lewis.

“Just having all these guys back that were here and doing well last year is a great thing,” Harlan said. “I think it is a little better to have two guys that still aren’t even going to be seniors with state experience. And that is a great thing to pass on to the team to kind of help pick up the intensity in the room.”

Crane said the team aspect of the sport comes from pushing each other each day in practice to be as successful as possible.

“(We are) trying to show each other up,” Crane said. “Kind of like, ‘I can do better than you’ and just the competitiveness (of it all).”

Wrestling isn’t like basketball or football where a team has to do what is best for the whole, and not always what is best for the individual. This often means sacrifice on the part of some players for team success.

But in wrestling, every wrestler can pin the opponent, while in basketball not everybody can shoot the ball every time down the court.

This means that many of Rock Bridge’s wrestlers are putting in some individual preparation to get ready for the season.

“Whenever I wasn’t doing anything, whenever I wasn’t working, I was in a room, wrestling. Trying to get better,” senior Chris Masters said. “Or working out trying to get better for this year.”

This will be just the third year Masters has wrestled, so his extra preparation this off-season was to try to make up some of the gap between him and some more experienced wrestlers.

Because wrestling is a grueling test of conditioning, a focus during the off-season for the Bruins has been getting into top physical form.

“I think we’re in really good condition,” senior Kiffer Slate said. “We’ve been doing a lot of conditioning, I think more than last year. I think we’ll be even stronger (than last year).”

Slate said that the team has been built together as a tight-knit group focused on pushing each other to succeed.

Harlan points to his upperclassmen as the reason for a team atmosphere in the individual sport.

“It’s great that we have the upperclassmen to show these guys what it is all about,” Harlan said. “Show them some new stuff, show them how intense and how hard they have to work in order to achieve something.”

The team has been practicing since early November and does not have its first competition until the Parkway South Tournament, which starts Dec.1.

Crane said he feels that the team is starting to get anxious to compete against some new faces instead of wrestling the same guys every day in practice.

“(I’m looking forward to) just going out there and competing in front of people,” he said. “It’s just the thrill of going out there and wrestling with somebody, and everybody is sitting there watching. It’s the most exciting (thing).”

Even with all the team aspects and teammates motivating each other, wrestling still boils down to how well an individual can do.

Crane has a personal goal of his own after last season’s fifth place finish at state.

“Win it,” he said. “Just straight up.”