INDIANAPOLIS — It was nearly a picture-perfect ending.
You couldn’t have scripted it much better, except for the finish. With a win against No. 1-ranked Eli Dickens in the state semifinals, Greenfield-Central’s Cooper Noehre advanced alongside Cathedral’s Elliott Rodgers to Saturday night’s 152-pound wrestling state championship match at Bankers Life Fieldhouse.
It was No. 2 vs. No. 3, for the third time.
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Click here to purchase photos from this galleryThe two had met twice already this season, each winning once in sudden-victory overtime by a 5-3 score. Rodgers won back in December. Noehre won a semistate title by beating the Cathedral junior a week ago.
A takedown with a minute left Saturday gave Noehre a 7-4 lead. He was close. A state championship was moments away.
Ten seconds later, Rodgers scored an escape, cutting it to 7-5. The two jockeyed for position for the next half of a minute, bringing the clock to :10.
A quick takedown by Rodgers tied the score at the nine-second mark, and, as they had done twice before, the two juniors found themselves in overtime, this time with a state championship on the line.
Twenty seconds into the sudden-victory overtime, the two got back to their feet and grappled. Rodgers suddenly slipped his left leg behind Noehre’s right ankle and fell forward, earning the takedown and a state championship with a 9-7, sudden-victory win.
“You’ve gotta dominate six minutes on the mat. You can’t take one second off,” Noehre said. “That one scramble, those two scrambles, is what cost me the match, really. It was off my moves. Just gotta work on it, get better and be back next year to get what I think is mine.”
The inside trip that Rodgers used to win was a move he said after the match that he had practiced this year but had never used in a match. Noehre hadn’t seen it in either of their two previous bouts.
It was a heartbreaking finish to what was an incredible weekend for the Greenfield-Central junior.
He started off the state finals with a Friday night victory against Bloomington South senior Elliott Ross, a 7-2 decision. He began Saturday with a 12-6 decision win against Isiah Levitz of Prairie Heights in the quarterfinals, then took down Evansville Mater Dei junior Dickens, the top-ranked wrestler at 152-pounds, by a 4-2 score.
Everything lined up perfectly for a rubber match with Rodgers. The first 5:50 of the match lined up perfectly for a state championship, before it slipped away.
The runner-up result isn’t what the Cougars went to Bankers Life Fieldhouse for, but it will serve as good experience as Noehre comes back for his senior year.
“I think the biggest thing that people forget, because Cooper is as good as he is, is this was his first trip to state. That kid that he wrestled, he wrestled under the lights last year,” Greenfield-Central coach Josh Holden said. “I think that’s big, that experience. This experience for us is going to be big going forward. I think it just changes you as a person and as a wrestler to experience what he got to experience. He’ll be back. We’re going to start training probably next week.”
One thing that didn’t change, despite the rare loss for Noehre, was his character. A big Greenfield-Central contingent was there to see the junior wrestle for a state championship.
That meant a lot to Noehre.
“It’s amazing, honestly,” Noehre said of the support. “Obviously, I’m not super pumped right now, but it was a great experience. I’m excited to be back next year and get what I came to accomplish.”
After the defeat, after the podium ceremony and all the post-match hoopla was done, Noehre made his way up to the second level of Bankers Life Fieldhouse to personally thank everyone who came to support him.
That’s what his coach is most proud of his wrestler for — the type of person Noehre is.
“I told his mom, it’s heartbreaking to watch one of your guys go through what he went through, but I think one of the hardest things to do after a match like that is to go back and face people,” Holden said. “You just want to be alone. You want to take a minute to kind of compose yourself. He went right upstairs, he hugged every single person that came, which was a lot of people. That’s what I’m most proud about. It’s not that he made it to the state finals. It’s the process. It’s being a good person. It’s doing the right thing. It’s working hard every day. It’s helping your teammates. It’s respecting your parents, doing a good job in school. All of those things are why I’m proud.
“Being a state champion is a great thing, but being a great person is more important.”
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Also competing in Saturday’s day two of the state finals were two Mt. Vernon wrestlers, brothers Chris and Chase Wilkerson.
Both advanced to Saturday’s quarterfinals with wins on Friday night. Chase, a senior, fell to undefeated state champion Jesse Mendez in the quarterfinals. Chris, a junior, lost to eventual third-place finisher Connor Gimson in Saturday’s first match.
The Wilkersons each fell in the first consolation match but picked up wins in their season finales, good enough for both to finish on the podium in seventh place.
The podium finishes capped off an incredible year for the brothers and the Mt. Vernon program, which set school records for wins, best sectional finish (2nd), most wrestlers advanced to regional (13) and most wrestlers advancing to semistate (8).
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