Columbus North wrestler Jason Shuey has participated in wrestling tournaments before, but now he’ll be wrestling in the biggest tournament of his career.
Shuey, who will be a sophomore at North, is competing in the 16U Freestyle Wrestling Nationals in Fargo, North Dakota that starts today and runs through Friday.
Shuey said that this is one of the most competitive and toughest tournaments in the country.
“It’s pretty exciting. It’s very high level,” Shuey said. “It’s the highest level that you can get without leaving the country. I haven’t done anything this before, so I’m glad I got the opportunity.”
In order to qualify for the nationals, Shuey had to finish top two at the Indiana State Wrestling Association state tournament back in May. He finished as the runner-up in the tournament.
Shuey made his departure to Fargo Thursday. He said that this is the first time we’ll be competing on the national stage.
“There’s nothing else really like it,” he said.
Preliminaries and consolation rounds will begin today, the quarterfinal, semifinal and consolation rounds on Sunday and the championship bouts on Monday.
Along with the 16U Freestyle, the 16U Women’s Freestyle, Junior Men’s Freestyle, Junior Freestyle, Junior Women, Junior Women Freestyle, 16U Greco-Roman and the Junior Greco-Roman division will also be on hand competing.
Shuey said that he practices with the North team three days a week in preparing for the upcoming high school season later this year.
Shuey hopes to improve from last year after he finished second in the sectional and regional and was a semistate qualifier at 120 pounds as a freshman.
Regardless of how Shuey performs, he’ll enjoy and take in the atmosphere of competing at the national stage.
“It’s definitely going to be a lot bigger and that’s why you got to go to stuff like that because the difference between going to semistate or something completely different, the stage is much bigger,” Shuey said. “A lot more eyes are on you while you are trying to wrestle. I know the big names there and you got to try to drown out all the extra stuff.”
