CRETE — There is a new routine for high school wrestlers while they compete during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Just before taking the mat for a match, the athletes take off their face covering and set it in their corner of the mat, along with their warmup clothes and headphones.
Wrestlers are supposed to wear masks when they’re not on the mat for their match. Coaches are supposed to wear them at all times.
Then the matches get started, although with a few changes. The wrestlers still shake hands before the match. But after the match, the official doesn’t raise the hand of the winner. Instead, the official holds their hand behind the winner. And the wrestlers don’t shake hands with the opposing coach.
It’s during practice, and in the stands at meets and duals, when wrestling looks and sounds most different while competing during a pandemic.
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At the Crete Invitational on Saturday, each athlete was only allowed one spectator, making some tough decisions for families.
Crete split its meet into two sites, with seven teams each at the high school and middle school. There was a team champion at each site. Central City will also have a two-site meet this season but will split the meet by weight classes so the team scoring can remain the same.
Usually, when the crowds are unlimited and a wrestler gets a big pin, a full section of fans may erupt, but there isn’t much of that now.
“With high school wrestling, you’re used to a really electric atmosphere in packed high school gyms,†said Central City senior Dyson Kunz. “It’s different with the COVID restrictions, but I’m just really glad that we’ve been given the opportunity to wrestle because I have a lot of friends in different states that didn’t get the chance to have a season (yet).â€
His parents didn’t have to make a tough decision because his brother had a middle school wrestling meet Saturday, so his mom was in Crete. But his grandparents couldn’t come as usual.
Kunz, a state champion last year at Class B's 126-pound weight class, set the school record for career wins Saturday with 160. He’ll wrestle in college at Northern Colorado.
Kunz says the wrestlers are motivated for the season to go well.
“We want to be team champions this year, so we’re really motivated to stay safe and keep having a season,†Kunz said.
During practice at Central City, the wrestlers are in pods of three or four wrestlers, and those are the only teammates with which they drill. That way contact tracing due to COVID-19 may not wipe out a large portion of the team.
There are people who think it will be hard for wrestling to work due to it being an indoor sport and a high-contact one at that.
Central City coach Darin Garfield believes wrestling coaches can do their part to help make it work.
“I think that wrestling gets a bad rap, and it’s really bothersome to me,†Garfield said. “We have one guy against another guy for a maximum of six minutes. If we’re doing things off of the mat when we’re together like wearing our masks and separating, the actual act of wrestling for six minutes to me is a minimal exposure. A football field has 22 guys competing against each other all night long, and basketball is 10 guys.
“It’s about doing the right things. As soon as we get off the mat, we wipe off with our disinfectant wipes. It’s about washing your hands all of the time. We put on disinfectant foam before matches.â€
Omaha North had to cancel its meet the first week of the season due to COVID-19 issues, which left several other teams without a meet.
Central City has had some wrestlers miss matches due to COVID-19 exposure, but not due to being sick themselves.
One of the biggest changes during the COVID-19 season is the elimination of the state duals championship. That move was to allow for the addition of subdistricts to the competition calendar for classes B, C and D.
That’s because, in the normal format, many districts would have too many teams at one location. Now the top four wrestlers in each district will advance to districts. The number of wrestlers advancing to state will be the same with the top four from each district.
The Nebraska School Activities Association is recommending that temperature checks to be part of the normal weigh-in process.
Some teams hosting meets are having a classroom where each team’s athletes return when they’re not competing to limit the number of people in the gym at one time.
Football is another high-contact sport, and that appears to have gone well at most Nebraska high schools.
“I said all along that all wrestling people better hope that football goes well, because if football didn’t go well then wrestling didn’t have a chance,†said Ron Higdon, the NSAA assistant director for wrestling. “Well, football went really well. There were some issues, but it wasn’t necessarily passed amongst competition.â€
There have been changes made to the state tournament, which will still be held at CHI Health Center Omaha.
The February tournament has been expanded from three days to four, but each class will compete only on two back-to-back days.
The championship for classes A and D will be Thursday night and the championships for B and C on Saturday evening. The finals will still be broadcast on NET.