Abby Meyer

For a sport that requires so much physicality and mental fortitude, wrestling often gets a bad rap and tends to be highly disregarded by students. So far during this 2023-2024 school year Bloomington High School North’s wrestling team has met multiple times a week, each week, to train and get better for their upcoming season. Throughout August, September, and now into October, the team has spent half of their time on the mats practicing their wrestling technique, and the other half of their time in the school’s weight room focusing on their strength.
Cael Hickok, Cas Crevello, and Jerimiah Casillas had a vast amount of successful matches last year with all three making it to sectionals, and two to regionals, and then Cael Hickok to Semi State. North’s head coach, Roy Bruce, is gently helping to improve and better this team.
“We’ve just got to continue building being successful. The goal is to get as many names as we can on our champion wall and to continue growing that success,” said Bruce.
With it being his second year of coaching at BHSN, the team has a great chance of getting some wrestlers on the path to State.
“Placing at state would be huge, not just for me, but for anyone on the team,” said Hickok.
The number of wrestlers on the team gives a great advantage to the program. Not only will the lineup consist of every weight class but the team dynamic will become increasingly better.
“We have a lot more people than last year so it should be a very good season with a lot of wins,” said Casillas.
With the school year already being 25% of the way done that means the wrestling season starts in less than a month. The Cougars first meet, the Maroon and Gold Intrasquad Meet, takes place on Nov. 15.
The team’s slogan is “Nobody cares, Work Harder” which is fitting for a team with an up and coming success story like the BHSN wrestlers. The hard work is clearly there with the pre season workouts that these athletes are partaking in.
“The goal is to get better each day, no excuses,” said Hickok. “Mentality and perseverance is something we as wrestlers will work on and conquer for the rest of our wrestling careers and hopefully the rest of our lives.”