As a senior in only his third season due to a knee injury his freshman year, Wilson has been prolonged a season with a medical waiver, giving him another chance to hopefully wrestle after his senior year.
Before coming to Utah Valley as a two-time state champion and three-time region champion, Wilson finished his high school career in Morgan, Utah with a 41-3 record, which led him to great opportunities to wrestle with college teams.
Redshirting his first season with Utah Valley and medical redshirting his second, Wilson took a huge leap as he officially started his sophomore season with an overall record of 7-2 duals, naming him the NWCA Individual Academic Team and the WWCA All-Academic Team.
Proceeding to his junior season, Wilson qualified in the NCAA Championships where he went 2-2 and placed second in the NCAA West Regional Championships. He finished the season with an overall record of 9-4 duals.
As Wilson wrestles his way into the 2012-2013 season as a senior, he hopes this isn’t the end for him. With the possible extension of a season, Wilson continues to prepare himself for more successful victories, getting ready to heat up the floor.
“My goals and accomplishments for this year are to be National Champ and be an All-American,” Wilson said. “I want to train and get better every day.”
Wilson recently placed eighth overall at the 50th annual Ken Kraft Midlands Championships in Evanston, Illinois, one of college wrestling’s toughest tournaments, making this his second consecutive season to place in the top-eight.
“It was a tough tournament, toughest of the year,” said Wilson. “I was happy with the outcome but there were things I still needed to improve on. I lost some matches but I felt like I could have beaten any one there.”
Starting the two-day tournament, competing with five other UVU teammates, Wilson went into the tournament as an eighth seed. He finished 4-1 in the first day, which advanced him and the rest of the Wolverines to the second and final day of the tournament.
UVU placed 29th out of 48 teams in Illinois with 11.5 points the first day.
Going into the second day, Wilson matched up with opponents in the top-ten seeds. Falling to some, Wilson wasn’t going to let the mat keep him from winning. Wilson finished the tournament with a 5-3 record, placing him eighth overall.
“Me and my coaches have things we are going to work on,” Wilson said. “We still have two and a half months until nationals, so we have a long time to fix and clean some things up to get better at.”
As a team, despite only half of them competing, Utah Valley placed 29th out of 48 teams with 15 points to end the tournament. With 99.5 points, Illinois took the overall win. Virginia Tech was a close second with 97.5 points.
According to Wilson, training and keeping your weight is key to successful match preparation. As he takes time to recover from the tournament in Illinois, but not too long, Wilson will continue to train even harder to prepare for the next home match against Wyoming.
“It’s going to be a tough dual,” Wilson said. “Wyoming is ranked 19th in the country, so hopefully we can pull it out.”
Rachel Anderson, assistant sports editor
randerson3x@gmail.com
