Chippewa Hills coach hopeful of meaningful wrestling season

John Raffel, jraffel@pioneergroup.com

Published

12:43 am EST, Sunday, November 22, 2020

REMUS — Wrestling has usually been an extremely successful and popular sport at Chippewa Hills.

This is especially why it’s a major disappointment for coach Kevin Edwards and his team, who perennially make it to the state finals, and were ready to start practices on Nov. 16, to realize the season was going to be delayed for awhile because of an uptick from the COVID 19 pandemic.

In the past, Warrior wrestlers came into the winter having had an extensive summer of workouts. It’s a different situation this year.

“We were doing some lifting and conditioning,” Edwards, starting his third year as coach, said. “We were not able to do anything organized.”

Edwards indicated the pushback in being able to start could have an impact in numbers.

“We were expecting 25 to 30 kids,” he said.

The current suspension goes until Dec. 9. Even if sports resume, it’s going to be different for Edwards and his program.

Wrestlers will be required to wear facemasks.

“We’ve been looking for different types of style of masks from different companies,” Edwards said. “We’ve had several different ones sent to us. We’re using different types and different styles from companies for what will work best. It’s a lot of trial and error. It will probably come down to personal preference for a lot of the athletes on which one they feel most comfortable in.”

Wrestling also was not going to be able to have than four teams at each event. The annual holiday invitational the Warriors host was not going to happen.

Actual matches won’t start until the week of Jan. 4. But schedules prior to the suspension were shortened compared to past seasons. Edwards was asked about the possibility of the MHSAA lengthening the season.

“There’s a lot to that in determining how much of a regular season we need before a postseason,” Edwards said. “Obviously the goal is having a team state championship and individual state championship. The MHSAA will meet later in December and see what it looks like.”

The post season was slated to start in early February.

“I don’t know if they’re going to start our postseason later and extend the start of our season or if they’re going to leave our season in tact and we’ll have a short one-month long regular season,” Edwards said. “Those are obviously things out of my control. Our MHSAA does a great job in working with our coaches association.”