2023
The 22-23 wrestling season brought two major changes to wrestling in the state of Iowa. Perhaps the biggest was Girls wrestling was sanctioned for the first time by the Girls Union. This adoption meant that for the first time the J-Hawk girls had their own team and didn’t have to wrestle on the boys’ squad anymore. Jefferson hired Alumnus VIcki (Dostal) Hlubek as the first Head Wrestling Coach. She finished the season with 16 young ladies on the roster. Freshman Josephine Budederi was the first girls state qualifier for the J-Hawks in the 140-pound weight class.
As he did each winter, the team motto for Coach Martin was “The Price of Success is Hard Work.” A major change on the boys side of wrestling was enacted when the top-three wrestlers at the district tourney would qualify for the state wrestling tournament. In addition, an extra day of competition was added. Consequently, the top eight seeds at state got a first-round bye while watching the other 16 lower-seeded wrestlers fight it out in a first-round match.
Despite four returning varsity letter winners moving away to other states, the J-Hawks regrouped, showing much improvement on the season. Six young men earnestly committed to off-season club wrestling. The athletes also produced a good showing for spring and summer open-mat time. Coach Martin brought in former coaches, alumni, college All-Americans and even college coaches to add to the technique and mindset of the grapplers.
One highlight of the season came on December 15th against Dubuque Wahlert. The J-Hawks had a double dual with the boys and girls teams. The girls picked up the first dual win for the program 57-18. The night also brought the boys its first win in the last two years 39-30. Junior Colin Woods placed 3rd at the District tournament. He was a state qualifier adding to the rich tradition of the J-Hawks having someone wrestle at the state tournament. With Colin qualifying for state he showed the rest of the team that you can make huge improvement in the off-season. Colin set the standard for the rest of the team in finding ways to improve, evidence of Martin’s theme for the ‘23 campaign.
Team captains were senior Shukuru Budederi and junior Cade Chism. Both produced double-digit win totals on the season, as did Colin Woods and freshman Brayden Curtis.
2022
The 21-22 season was a second year of wrestling in a Pandemic. COVID-19 didn’t slow the J-Hawks down; they have learned to take many precautions and safety measures to limit it’s chance of getting COVID. We had to deal with a very limited number of cases because of the precautions we have in place.
The returning wrestlers from the year before did a nice job of recruiting other young men to join the wrestling team. With the increase of numbers the J-Hawks had a very young and raw varsity squad. But these young wrestlers took the Motto for the season “Victory begins in the Heart” and battled each and every time they stepped in the varsity line-up. The increased number of wrestlers allowed the J-Hawks to fill out a complete Varsity line-up all season which hasn’t been seen in a few years. These young J-Hawks battled and improved many dual scores from the year before. They lost 3 duals by less than 4 points.
With no wins on the season for the varsity squad finished the season strong. They came to practice each and every night ready to work and learn. They kept working on the Motto “Victory begins in the heart.” The lessons these young wrestlers learned will pay off for them in future seasons.
2021
The 2021 season was like no other in the history of Jefferson. Certainly, since the
school opened in 1957, there have never been so many challenges placed before the J-Hawks. The historic mid-August “Derecho” severely damaged the building and closed it, no longer allowing students to attend school in person. Athletes were affected too, unable to get any preseason wrestling as they waited for a new roof to be put on the athletics facilities.
As students were all set to come back into the building, the Cedar Rapids School district shut down due to the SARS-Coronavirus-2 Pandemic (Covid-19.) Based on a directive from the Iowa Governor, if any school was not providing in person academics they could not have athletics either. That decision delayed the start of wrestling in November two weeks.
Another big change was the return of long time assistant Rob Martin as the new head wrestling coach, and state champion Connor Herman as one of his assistants. A longtime fixture on Jefferson’s faculty, it was a natural fit for Martin who hit the ground running in recruiting multisport athletes and emphasizing the motto- Trust the Process.
After many delays, Coach Martin got the wrestling season rolling with a scrappy group of young men and women that dared to not only to compete with the opponent across from them on the mat, but they had to battle against Covid-19. They held practice wearing masks, submitted to daily health screening and constant sanitizing of everything to try and avoid any outbreaks. Through no fault of their own, in mid-January despite all the precautions, Covid-19 hit the J-Hawks. Once again the team shut down for a week to stop the spread and get them to the postseason healthy.
The J-Hawks were undaunted and persevered going 2-7 in duals and getting Coach Martin his first home and conference dual win against Waterloo East on January 14th, 51-30. The J-Hawks rolled into the District tournament without a wrestler whose seed would suggest they would be a state qualifier. Fourth-seeded 195 pounder Preston Bruck “trusted the processes” and believed he could prove the doubters wrong and make State. Preston finished the day as the District runner-up which punched his ticket to the 3A State Wrestling Tournament.
Through all the setbacks of a Derecho disaster and health battles due to a worldwide pandemic, the 2020-2021 J-Hawk wrestling team pulled up the singlet straps, snapped on the head gear and secured their shoelaces to go to war each and every time they stepped on the mat. |
