‘Silent assassin’: Show Low’s Housley caps undefeated senior season with state title
SHOW LOW, Ariz. (BVM) – Cole Housley’s junior wrestling season was the furthest thing from a failure, but it didn’t end the way he envisioned. A 13-8 loss in last year’s 106-pound state title match remained at the forefront of Housley’s mind throughout an entire offseason and senior campaign.
“We gave him a little bit of a hard time about it because he (Housley) had beaten that kid earlier in the year and pinned him,” Show Low wrestling coach Eric Reed said. “To lose to a kid that you already beat, it motivated him a lot more for this year and he took a lot of ownership of keeping this streak alive of state champions of the Show Low program year after year.”
Housley’s journey to returning to the state meet began at a place he dominates: the weight room.
Reed said the Show Low senior is one of the strongest pound-for-pound athletes he’s ever coached. Housley’s dedication in the weight room came in handy especially as he made the transition from wrestling at 106 pounds to 113.
It came down to a personal choice for Housley, Reed said, on whether he would wrestle at 113 or 120, but the senior settled on 113 in a decision that was best for him and the Cougars.
“Really he’s a silent assassin,” Reed said of Housley. “He’s very mellow, doesn’t really have any highs or lows and is just very on key. He grinds and gets after it.”
The silent assassin came back after an elongated offseason due to Covid-19 and dominated his new 113-pound weight class as a senior.
Housley put together an undefeated 16-0 regular season before carrying his momentum back into last week’s AIA Division 3 state tournament at Poston Butte High.
The senior needed just 34 seconds to pin his opening-round opponent, Peoria’s Adan Palmer. It was a 15-4 major decision in the quarterfinals against Safford’s Anthony Garrobo before another first-period pin in the semifinals against Yuma’s Sabian Russell.
Housley would meet Flagstaff Coconino’s Tony Hernandez in the title match for their second meeting of the season. The Show Low senior clung to a one-point lead before pinning Hernandez in the final period of their regular season meeting.
It would be another closely-contested match in the state finals, but Housley pulled out a 6-4 decision in overtime to cap an undefeated senior campaign and claim the 113-pound championship.
After wrestling at 106 pounds for three years before making the jump to 113 in the midst of a pandemic, Reed believes Housley’s special senior season puts him in a different conversation of excellent former Show Low wrestlers.
“Like the Jackson Allens and Ricky Ryans (both four-time state champions) of the program, he (Cole) had that same mentality of ‘I’m going to come in and this is my weight class, and everybody is going to have to either dodge me, or go through me,’” Reed said. “For him to come in and have that mindset, I thought that’s what would separate him from the string of champions who came before him.”
Housley was one of six Cougars to qualify for state, and one of four to earn a medal. The six qualifiers tops last season’s total of four, and Show Low’s ninth place team finish at state bests its 13th place finish from a year ago.
