After winning the Oregon high school Triple Crown of wrestling already this year, Colton Schilling went one better Monday, July 19, placing eighth in the Cadet Greco national tournament in Fargo, N.D.
That finish earns him All-American status as he enters his sophomore year of high school.
“This is the national tournament,” Sweet Home Coach Steve Thorpe said. “It doesn’t just have ‘national’ on the name of it.
Colton doing this as a first-year cadet is pretty special. He definitely worked for it and earned it.”
Schilling is one of four Sweet Home sophomores-to-be who are wrestling in the national tournament. The others are Tyler Schilling, who came within a match of finishing in the top eight, Colby DeCleave and Trever Olson.
The tournament was Schilling’s first since sustaining a back injury that has kept him out of action since the state Greco and freestyle tournaments. He saw limited action at the Santiam Wrestling Camp two weeks ago.
Schilling pinned his first three opponents and won his fourth match by decision, but said he had trouble after that, mostly with the size of his opponents in the 112-pound bracket, which included 65 wrestlers. He lost to the eventual third-place and fifth-place finishers in his next two matches, and then finished with a loss by decision to a Florida wrestler in the seventh-place bout.
“Mostly the kids I lost to were big kids with big arms,” he said. “I couldn’t move them or anything. My back was bothering me and I couldn’t move them like I’m used to. That doesn’t help any. I definitely was not the big kid in the bracket. I also didn’t train as much as I usually do.”
His father and coach, Steve Schilling, said they would take it a step at a time as freestyle action starts Wednesday.
“Fatigue got him at the end,” Steve Schilling said, noting that Colton wrestled six matches Sunday, the last three 15 minutes apart. “I think he’s still struggling with it. We’re going to try to wrestle him in freestyle and see how it goes.”
Colton Schilling is the first Sweet Home cadet wrestler in 10 years to make All-American. The last were James Gourley, who placed fourth in Greco in 1999, Andrew Swanson and David Helfrich, who all made All-American that year. Helfrich and Swanson repeated in 2000, Helfrich in Greco and Swanson in freestyle.
Schilling said he didn’t expect to make All-American when he started the tournament, “but once I got there I wished I had done better.
“I still have another style,” he said. “I feel better because now (in freestyle) a kid’s size won’t come into play as much. I like Greco better, but I’m better at freestyle. I know who the tough ones are now. That’s an advantage.”