The boys wrestling team earned fifth place in the Missouri Class 4 State Tournament, including five individual medalists and a state champion.
As the team closed out another season in Columbia, Missouri, senior Kamaha’o Grace placed sixth in the 285-pound weight class, and senior Merrik Murray placed fourth in the 165-pound weight class. Seniors Zane Reynolds and Gunner Dahms both placed second, with Dahms in the 106-pound class and Reynolds in the 126-pound class. Senior David Gleason won his second state title, earning first place in the 157-pound weight class, securing his perfect season.
The varsity wrestling team has placed top-four every year since 2012, but the program has not always seen that much success. With the program starting in 2008 under former head coach Gary Mayabb, the size of the team was limited with the new program trying to increase their recruiting outreach with a new student body.
“We were building from literally the ground up,” current head coach Elisha Bears said. “We had kids who had never wrestled before who were in our varsity lineup.”
Bears worked as an assistant coach for nine years under Mayabb before taking the head coaching job in 2018, the year after they won their first team state championship.
With the establishment of the youth club as a pipeline for the wrestling program, new and experienced wrestlers transition into the program with an extended knowledge of the sport.
“We have kids who come in who know how to wrestle and who have had success in wrestling,” Bears said. “We have been able to put really good people in front of kids.”
In 2010, the team crowned its first individual state champion, Patrick Rhoads, while the program was starting out in Class 3. Rhoads won the state title again the year after that, followed by three consecutive years of having at least one individual state champion. The growth of the program was visible, and before 2015, the team had six individual champions which later grew to 16, with senior David Gleason’s win this year.
Gleason was also part of the state team his freshman season, but was unable to wrestle his sophomore and part of his junior year with a tear in his knee. After his recovery, Gleason finished out his junior season with a state title after a long break from wrestling.
“I’ve seen me improve from freshman year all the way to senior year, watching my film from freshman year and sophomore year, then watching my film now, I definitely made a big jump, and it makes me more accomplished,” Gleason said.
In Gleason’s senior season, he reached the milestone of 100 wins during an undefeated season, living up to the expectations as he was ranked on Sports Illustrated’s preseason national rankings at No. 13 for the 150-pound weight class. Gleason’s accomplishments have earned him the opportunity to wrestle at the collegiate level for the University of Missouri, where he said his goal is to win a national title.
The team sent 12 wrestlers to compete at state, 10 of whom are seniors who have been part of the team since their freshman year. Whether battling through injuries or competing for a varsity spot, every senior wrestler has had obstacles to overcome on the road to the state championship.
Two of senior Merrik Murray’s seasons were cut short by a broken ankle in his sophomore season and a torn ligament during his junior season. Despite the battle through injury, Murray was part of the state team for three years, placing fifth in 2024 and fourth in 2025.
“I didn’t quite do as well as the other guys, but I battled through some injuries every year, and it kind of taught me a lot of lessons,” Murray said. “I think it’s more meaningful that I made it back overall.”
Even with success among the senior class, talent also shows elsewhere with underclassmen stepping up on the team. Sophomore Karsyn Redeker was on the state team for the first time and said he plans to fill in big varsity roles with other sophomores and juniors after the seniors graduate.
“The younger guys in the program that aren’t seniors or juniors like most of the state team were stepping up and getting better, and they’re going to take over after all these seniors leave,” Redeker said.
Redeker won the team’s Most Improved Wrestler award in 2024 and plans to do more as a young role model on the team.
“Just putting more work in than I did last year,” Redeker said. “Doing work outside the room, doing work that no one else sees.”
Even with consistent success in the program, there is more to the story than numbers and awards.
“I think I’m most proud of the process of those kids,” Bears said. “Every one of the kids we had were kids who have come up through youth wrestling and having success, but going from youth to high school is a big jump.”
Even with the large group of seniors leaving, the team plans to still have the pieces it needs to continue the success it has seen for more than a decade. The youth wrestlers will still have the opportunity to learn and buy into the fundamentals of the program, not just to improve as wrestlers, but people.
“The end goal for everyone is to win the state championship,” Bears said. “But having kids who just wanted to get better and who were willing to put work in, not for the gold medal, but because they were going to make themselves better and because they were going to make the people around them better is the end game.”
From pins to conditioning sessions, the wrestling season was another one for the record books as the team continued its 13-year streak of placing top-four at state. With another season finished, the team will say farewell to the seniors and welcome a new class of wrestlers to help carry the torch of the program, with 47 2025 state qualifiers from the Team Central Youth Wrestling Club, the school’s youth team. With this new talent at hand, the wrestling team was still seen as a powerhouse program.
