A victory walk through the school. Charter bus ride to Greensboro. New T-shirts hailing the “Nefarious Nine.”
Polk County’s state wresting tournament qualifiers have been celebrating and celebrated this week. But now comes time to turn their focus to the task at hand – trying to win a state title.
The Wolverines begin action Sunday in the state 1A tourney at Greensboro Coliseum. The event, postponed by wintry weather earlier in the week, features boys and girls wrestlers across all four classifications and began Saturday with girls competition as well as 2A, 3A and 4A wrestlers in action.
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Sunday brings the first 1A matches, and Polk County will begin the day with a school-record nine wrestlers in the field. That’s the third largest contingent in 1A – only Uwharrie Charter (13) and Mount Airy (10) have more – and the largest of any Western North Carolina school in any class.
“I felt like all the kids that qualified had a chance,” said Polk County head coach Thomas Hensley. “There were other kids that didn’t make it that we thought could, but we knew these guys could.
“Last year I thought we could have seven or eight, best case scenario. But things happen – people get injured, people feel sick. This year, it felt like we had a lot of really good things happen. That’s just the way we’ve been training. We plan to peak in February, and it was a lot of fun.”
Sophomore Styler Blackwell captured the 1A West Regional title at 157 pounds – just Polk’s second regional champion since 2011 – and four other Wolverines finished as regional runners-up. Blackwell will face Union Academy’s Jayden Linker in Sunday’s opening round, and he is one of four Polk wrestlers who are making a repeat state tourney appearance, joined by Amon Villarreal, Zalen McCraw and Brody Wolfe.
“Last year we had a lot of young guys and Jadyn Virgil. This year we have a lot more guys that are older and more experienced. They’ve seen oit,” Hensley said. “Not looking ahead, but we’ll have nine guys coming back next year that are state qualifiers, so if we can get some diamonds next year on a ring, that would be cool.”
The revised schedule means the championship matches will take place on a Monday evening rather than the traditional Saturday, which Hensley said would likely mean a smaller crowd and fewer family members in attendance. “But we’re going to wrestle, and we’re going to be fine,” he said.
Polk sent five wrestlers to last year’s state tourney and takes nine this year. The Wolverines reached the Elite Eight in the state dual team tournament. The season included a school record for most dual match wins.
It’s all part of the vision that Hensley had for growing the program when he took over as head coach.
“I’m a big picture guy,” he said. “I think all the time about we should look like this, we should look like that. My first year, I remember that summer before I was the head coach, I remember thinking, in two or three years we need to be making a run at something important.
“People told me I was crazy and that it couldn’t be done, that it was going to take a long, long time. And I was like, we have so much potential here. We have tough, hard-nosed kids. We have a great youth program. We have the best middle school coach in Western North Carolina (Jerry Cox). So why not us?
“It absolutely is an evolution. These kids have been together a long time, and we have kids that are coming in and they’re just buying into the culture, and we’re going to have a great offseason. Absolutely, the best is yet to come.”
