Finish disappoints Lancer
For most high school wrestlers, finishing in third place at the state Mat Classic in Tacoma would be the perfect ending to a tough season. That is unless you’re Adam Thies of Liberty High School.
“It’s kind of a bummer,” said Thies. “I expected to do better than that. I know I could have placed higher than that, but I feel like I let myself down.”
The reason for the Lancer junior’s disappointment is that Thies also finished third at state at 135 pounds in the state 1A/B tournament after his sophomore season.
“I think we both expected to go over there and have a shot to win it,” said Lancer head coach Dom Duncan. “He wrestled as hard as he could. As long as he gave us what he had, you can’t ask for anything more.”
Thies lost his shot at the state title when he was defeated in the semifinal round by Angel Ledezma of Royal High School 8-5, after Thies had taken an early lead.
“Toward the end things started going bad,” Thies said. “I don’t really know how to explain it. It started off fine, but then towards the end it started going downhill.”
“I think he banged up his shoulder,” said Duncan. “You could kind of tell his shoulder started to hurt him.”
After falling short of the championship dream, Thies bounced back as he defeated Andrew Butler of Royal in the consolation round 7-6. Then Thies took third place with a pin of Reardan’s Josh Eldred at 1:55.
“I thought that match was going to be tougher because I had wrestled him twice before,” said Thies. “It was a close match both times.”
While the sadness of a second straight third place finish still hangs in the air, Thies performance left both the junior and his coach feeling pride and accomplishment.
“I feel he was one of the top wrestlers in the state,” said Duncan. “His performance showed it. He had one match where he could have won it. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen.”
“I felt accomplishment because I did things that I hadn’t done for a while,” Thies said. “This year I got the most pins I’ve ever had in a season. This is the best record I’ve ever gotten. I’ve accomplished a lot of things, but I felt I could have done a little bit better during the second day of state.”
As for improving on this year’s performance, Thies has last year’s preparation to look back upon.
“I remembered from last year to this year at the state tournament, I worked on my takedowns a lot because Coach Duncan told me I needed to work on those,” said Thies, who will be on the Liberty baseball team this spring.
“Last year I remember I was horrible at shots,” he said. “I defended the whole time. This year I saw myself shooting more. After the shot, I finished a lot better, I got more pins, and I just got better in the long run.”
So will this year’s finish be on his mind as he gets ready for one last shot at the title in his senior season next year?
“It will be,” Thies said. “I’ll be working a lot. I’m looking forward to it. I’ll still be wrestling (during baseball season.). I’ll probably end up doing a couple of freestyle meets.”