Aledo senior fought for wrestling team. Now he and teammates are week away from state.
.jpg "Aledo wrestlers Cole Bohnen, left, Evan Morrow, center, and Texas Ray competed in the district meet in Lubbock on Feb. 5. The Bearcats are sending six wrestlers to regionals in the program’s first year.")
When Cole Bohnen was a freshman at Aledo High School, he was only interested in one sport.
Wrestling.
But there was one problem. Aledo didn’t have a wrestling team.
So Bohnen, now a senior, did all he could to bring it to the school. A school not only surrounded by other wrestling programs in the area, but also one that has a rich tradition in athletics.
“I’ve been interested in wrestling a long time. My family is a wrestling family,” said Bohnen, whose dad wrestled in Wisconsin and brother in California. “As a freshman I started to reach out to the administration and doing whatever I could to get this started.”
Bohnen finally got the approval in March 2021 as a junior and now Aledo has a boys and girls wrestling team for the first time. The Bearcats travel to El Paso for the regional meet on Friday and Saturday.
Aledo had 20 wrestling at the district meet.
Six, including Bohnen, qualified for regionals. He placed fourth in the 138-pound weight class.
The top four at regionals advance to state in Cypress.
Before the district meet, Bohnen said he was just grateful to be wrestling as a senior and anything past this was just extra ... ”and to represent my school. I’m just grateful to come this far.”
Chad Thomas (113, third place), Daniel Bunting (195, fourth) and Austin Conner (220, fourth) also qualified. Ansel Din-Mbuh won the district championship at 285, the first in program history, and Elizabeth McCarley (165, fourth) is the first and only to qualify for the girls team.
Evan Morrow, Ty Hand and Texas Ray are alternates.
“It was a learning curve. Wrestling is really technical, more so than other sports,” Bohnen said. “It was a slow process. We had to teach the stance and motion, hand fighting just to get in the flow. It’s been a big improvement and coaches have done a phenomenal job. We’ve got wrestlers committed now as much as I am.”
“It’s blown up,” added Aledo coach Austin Stockon, who says there’s about 70 kids in the program. “They’ve had good seasons. If they had two or three years, they would’ve been phenomenal, but it is what it is. They’ve worked their butts off to get here.”
The Class 6A Region 1 meet is at Thomas Coliseum in Haltom City while the 6A Region 2 meet is at Allen.
The 5A Region 2 meet is at Frisco Memorial.
In the beginning
Bohnen started a petition and went around school to get any support as a freshman.
That fell through.
He did it again as a sophomore. It fell through once more.
His last chance was as a junior.
“It was my final shot to get a program started,” Bohnen said. “I wanted at least one full year of wrestling in my high school career so I went full throttle and got enough support. I went classroom to classroom, nagging the administration, and trying to make as much noise so they couldn’t say no.”
Then Bohnen went in front of the school board in March 2021.
Aledo athletic director Steve Wood and the members approved it.
“Cole is a go-getter, has plenty of interest and sparked it up, and the administration was ready to fund it,” Wood said. “We’ve had great turnouts and the coaches have done a great job getting kids out there.
“We were a little behind than most schools that have wrestling. We’d have kids who had interest through the years, kids with some background and expressed interest, but we were going to probably need 20 kids to consider it.”
Stockon is an Aledo product.
He played football at Aledo and graduated in 2009. He spent the previous five seasons at neighboring Weatherford as its wrestling coach.
“Yes, I was interested. I grew up here and having an opportunity to come home was big,” he said. “My wife taught here, my mom taught here for 30 years so coming home and doing something new was exciting to me.”
Aledo has little to no issue when it comes to sports.
The football team holds the 11-man state record with 10 state championships. The softball and baseball teams have won titles, soccer has gone to state, and volleyball, golf and swimming have all played on the big stage.
So Wood knew that the community would quickly back the sport.
“These people support our kids,” he said. “It’s a unique place, not a lot like it. Our school activities bring the town together. It’s unbelievable. We had a home wrestling match and we had a big student section. It’s pretty exciting.”
Perfect match
Junior Texas Ray started at first base and helped the softball team to the Class 5A state championship game last June. Ray had 43 hits, 29 RBIs and a team-high 16 doubles.
She went to wrestling practice one day and now is ranked No. 19 in the state. One of her best friends, Bailey Ford at Burleson Centennial, who placed at state last season, was her inspiration to try wrestling.
“I came out and I thought it looked funny,” Ray said. “I tried it for a couple days and now I love it. I came home and told my parents I tried out a new sport ... wrestling. They went to the first meet and since then they think it’s so cool.”
“It was a new deal for her and she’s been kicking butt,” Stockon added. “And she’s just a junior so there’s a ton of growth. Couple girls recruited her plus we didn’t have a girl in her 185-pound weight class and she’s stuck with it. She’s super physical and I’m excited for her.”
Ray also said she’s trying out in shot put and powerlifting for the first time this season.
“I’m just very competitive and willing to work,” said Ray, who’s committed to play softball at Tulsa.
She went on to praise her teammates and their improvement.
“Now I come in and ready to work, and I know I’m going to have a good partner because they put in the time and effort like I have and we’ve improved massively.
“It’s very exciting especially in the first year because now we’ve set the tone pretty well.”
This story was originally published February 9, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
