Washburn Rural has No. 1 boys and girls wrestling programs in Kansas
TOPEKA, Kan. (BVM) — Turning Washburn Rural into one of the top boys wrestling programs in the state has been a gradual process for 10th-year head coach Damon Parker. By contrast, it only took one year for Parker to accomplish that with his girls program, which captured the 2019-20 team state title — the first year of sanctioned girls high school wrestling in Kansas.
Now both the boys and girls are ranked No. 1 by the Kansas Wrestling Coaches Association.
“With the girls, I knew we had the athletes and I had plenty of confidence in our coaching staff that they’d be one of the teams to contend with right off the bat,” Parker said. “On the boys side, that’s a different animal. It has been a slow burn. Every year it’s just been that gradual task of pushing that boulder up the hill and every year we’re making a little bit more progress.”
Parker acted quickly when he realized that girls wrestling was going to become an official KSHSAA sport beginning in 2019. He knew that if he could build the infrastructure, gain interest and drive up the program’s numbers early, the Junior Blues would be ahead of the curve and positioned for early success, and he left no stone unturned in his initial search for athletes.
“We went to all the other athletic teams and PE classes, but then we started looking for athletes where most people wouldn’t think athletes are hiding,” Parker said.
That includes the school’s marching band, which Parker said ended up being a “a goldmine.” He also found athletes from the cheerleading team, theater and in various other clubs around the high school. By the time all the recruiting was finally done and the first season arrived, Parker had 62 athletes on his first girls wrestling team.
“We just really drove the point home that there are few times in your life where you get to do something that’s truly historic and this is one of those times and they all wanted to be a part of it,” Parker said. “It was a strength in numbers thing and the cream kind of rose to the top and we had a great year.”
Parker’s first year with the boys wasn’t nearly as successful. In 2012, Washburn Rural finished 30th out of 32 teams. But over the past three seasons, the Junior Blues have become a consistent state title contender, finishing as the state runner-up in 2020 and 2018 and taking fourth place in 2019.
“To see the fruits of those labors over the last decade come to fruition, it’s pretty dang cool,” Parker said. “I’m proud of our kids because they’ve all bought in to win what we’re trying to get done here and they do what we ask them to do.”
This year’s boys team is stacked with individual title contenders, with eight wrestlers ranked in the top six in their weight class, including senior Bishop Murray (No. 1 in 120 pounds) and junior Jacob Tangpricha (No. 1 in 113), who are not only both defending state champs, but also team leaders for the Junior Blues.
“Those two are just absolute sharks,” Parker said. “They’re the two captains of our team, they run the ship. … On the mat, in matches, Bishop and Tang give us exactly what we expect. They go out there and take care of business, but I think what makes them different from most kids and most programs is what happens behind our mat room walls.”
The Washburn Rural girls team has seven wrestlers ranked in the top six, including senior Dajia Anderson, who captured an individual state title in the 235-pound division last year but has dropped down in weight and is now ranked No. 3 at 191. Anderson cut weight in order to create a spot for senior Kelly Mercer (No. 4 in 235), who Parker believes was the top JV heavyweight last year. With Anderson moving down, that meant junior Jaliah Johnson, who placed third at 191 last year, had to move down to 170 where she’s currently ranked No. 2, and Rebekah Smith, who placed third in 170 last winter, is now down in the 155-pound class where she’s ranked No. 1.
“The coolest thing about these girls is they have made a ton of sacrifices for the good of the team,” Parker said. “All of these girls made substantial offseason life changes that will benefit not just the team but themselves down the road.”
Despite the No. 1 ranking, it’s difficult for Parker to say what the expectation should be for the girls team heading into its second state tournament, simply because the sport is still so new.
“We really don’t know what’s out there,” Parker said. “On the boys’ wrestling side, it’s a lot easier to look at past opponents, past results, all of that and you can kind of draw conclusions pretty well before a tournament. On the girls’ side, there’s so many pins, it’s almost a different sport. I hesitate to say what expectation is as far as where they’ll place but we expect them to have a strong finish to the year for sure.”
The same can be said for the boys team, which is hoping to win its first state title. But the Junior Blues remain focused on the day-to-day grind and improvement that comes from that rather than the potential of making history for the program.
“We haven’t said the words state championship once in practice,” Parker said. “If you focus on personal and team improvement every single day and you give the maximum amount of effort that you can squeeze out of your body, then all of those things take care of themselves.”
Parker’s plan when he took the Washburn Rural head coaching job a decade ago was to bring the boys program to the point where it is consistently competing for league and state championships. It’s fair to say the Junior Blues have reached that point, and while the girls might have already won the race to the first wrestling state title, the boys might not be too far behind.
“If we don’t get one this year, we will in the future,” Parker said. “It’s gonna happen.”
