The Cottonwood Mingus wrestling program, which won its fifth consecutive Class 4A Division II state title on Saturday, may never be the same.
Mingus had its best season ever in the mind of head coach Tom Wokasch and it allows for the perfect escape plan for its mentor.
After Mingus walked through the 4A-II state dual meet by scores of 68-5, 59-15 and 47-16 on Saturday, Wokasch told his Athletic Director Michael Boysen that he was retiring.
"The way I look at it is, I go out on top with the best team in the state," Wokasch said. "I don't care how you look at it, every coach considers Flowing Wells the tournament to win and that's what we did."
Mingus won the Flowing Wells Invitational in January in a field that included 2010 state team champions from every division accept Class 1A/2A.
Add to that the undefeated dual-meet season, a good performance at the Reno Tournament of Champions, the team standings championship at the individual state meet and it is hard to argue against Wokasch.
No one in 4A-II can that is for sure. Since the big schools split into divisions five years ago, top-seeded Mingus has dominated and that was topped off this season with wins over No. 8 Flagstaff, No. 5 Gilbert Williams Field and No. 5 Phoenix Thunderbird in success matches at Peoria High on Saturday.
"They went to an even higher level for state," said Wokasch, who didn't tell his wrestlers of his impending retirement. "We had kids step in and beat kids who finished higher than them at state and even in the losses we pushed state champions to double overtime and made them work for it."
Mingus' lineup features state champions in Luke Goettl (140), Logan Addis (145) and David Wilber (152) but it was performances from wrestlers like Hank Goettl (112) and Tyler Openshaw (215) that made the difference.
Openshaw took Thunderbird state champion Jason Birchfield to double overtime before losing. Yes, it was a defeat but Openshaw came out to the team two years ago mostly as a dare after his brother quit because he couldn't handle the dedication and hard work.
"That epitomizes everything that we are about," Wokasch said.
Courtesy of AZCentral.com
Subscribe to this comment's feedwritten by cgiannola , February 25, 2010
So long coach.... Its sad to see you go out with the boot from an official at the end of the team duel championships. I was saddened that you were not present to accept the team trophy. Thats not the way any successful coach should go out.
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