Carroll tops Kapaun for first time in 5 years thanks to wrestler’s first varsity bout
About four weeks ago, the Bishop Carroll High School wrestling coach entered the gym after school and saw an unfamiliar face rolling out the mats.
“How can a kid your size not be wrestling?” J.D. Johnson said.
The kid looked at him and shrugged. He knew he wanted to be there and just wanted to get his foot in the door. Johnson told him to get in the wrestling room.
“After about day 3 or 4, he’s like, ‘Man, I’m loving this, Coach,’ ” Johnson said. “He’s like a little — well, not a little sponge — he’s like a big sponge. He just absorbs everything you tell him.”
Wednesday night, that kid made his varsity debut in one of the most pressure-filled spots of the Golden Eagles’ season. And junior Carlos Martinez came through.
Martinez wrestled to a 3-1 defeat against Kapaun senior Marcus Buchanan in the final bout of the night. Avoiding a pin helped Carroll hold on for a 36-33 win over its rival for the first time in five years.
Martinez said he was so nervous ahead of the bout that he was reading poetry to try to calm himself.
“I just zoned out,” he said. “I had half the team come up and say, ‘Hey, just don’t get pinned. If there’s one thing you do, don’t get pinned.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I know. They told me already. I saw the scoreboard. I know I can’t get pinned.’ “
Martinez had no wrestling experience before joining one of the top contenders for the City League title. He went to Carroll’s home dual against Wichita West on Dec. 13 and was hooked.
He grew up playing soccer and has been part of the Carroll football team, but something speaks to him on the mat. He said he is going to stick with it through next year, too.
“The kids are pushing themselves the whole way,” he said. “Team sports are good and all, but I think I’m learning how to rely on myself. These kids are like family now.”
Martinez’s arrival to the program has been equally beneficial. The Golden Eagles went all last season without a heavyweight in the lineup. They lost those potential points, risking the chance of losing a dual meet on criteria points.
Martinez isn’t a state championship-caliber wrestler yet. He is learning on the fly, and if he continues to wrestle on the varsity card, he is likely to get pinned along the way. But Wednesday, his presence saved Carroll a handful of points that proved to make the difference.
“Just his work ethic is awesome,” Johnson said. “He’s one of the first guys done with sprints, and he’s our heavyweight. ... You got a guy who is wrestling in his fifth match ever in this type of environment, that ain’t easy to wrestle in, but he seems to feed off it.”
He weighed in about 235 pounds Wednesday. He wrestles in a 285-pound class. Buchanan had about 50 pounds on him. Johnson said Martinez knows about five moves. He sticks to what he can do, keeps moving and uses the edges of the mat to his advantage.
Martinez said he didn’t have much of a strategy. But whatever he did worked Wednesday as Johnson fired a fist through the air as the third-period buzzer went off to signal a Carroll victory.
“That was one to remember, that’s for sure,” senior Brady Bockover said. “To have a kid that has only wrestled for a few weeks, going out there and saving us, it’s pretty cool.”
Bockover has been another beneficiary of Martinez’s arrival. Bockover, the No. 1 wrestler in Class 5A at 195 pounds, pinned his opponent in 21 seconds Wednesday. But he has been getting by without a real sparring partner in practice.
Carroll now has five wrestlers within about 65 pounds of one another.
With the win, Carroll stays undefeated in City League duals. Entering Wednesday, the Golden Eagles were one of three undefeated teams left in the GWAL. Kapaun was another, and Carroll wrestles the third Feb. 7 when the Eagles host Wichita Northwest.
“It takes checking nine boxes to win a City League title,” Johnson said. “We checked a big one tonight.”