Columbus East’s Ethan Poling, facing, battles Switzerland County’s Ethan Rose in the 132-pound final Jan. 31 in the Jennings County Sectional.
Dakota Locker | For The Republic
Ethan Poling is happy to be healthy at the right time.
The Columbus East junior is only two wins away from clinching his ticket to the Boys Wrestling State Finals after missing the postseason last year due to injury. Poling and 10 other Olympian wrestlers will compete in the Evansville Semistate at 10 a.m. EST (9 a.m. CST) Saturday at the Ford Center.
It was during practice a few days before the sectional last year that Poling tore his meniscus. The pain of the injury and missing out on the postseason hurt a lot for him, but he still went to cheer on his teammates.
“I was very sad,” Poling said. “It felt different, but I was glad to be able to support my teammates. I was very sad a lot of the time, though, and it just took a lot from me. It mentally toughened me, too.”
Poling has been involved with wrestling nearly his whole life. He began wrestling when he was in kindergarten and wrestled at Central Middle School.
Ethan Poling
Outside of the mat, Poling is talented playing musical instruments such as the drums, guitar and ukulele.
Last year as a sophomore, Poling wrestled at 113 pounds, but then made the jump to 132 this season.
“I was cutting a lot of weight to 113,” he said. “I was naturally about at least 120, but I was also trying to put on muscle throughout the whole offseason.”
With Poling healthy to start the season, he had a setback right before Christmas in a match against Franklin when he reaggravated the knee that caused him to miss a month of the season.
When Poling has been on mat, he has nearly dominated his opponents. He’s 21-3 overall in duals and ranked No. 27 at 132 in the Indianamat.com rankings.
“The way the season ended for him, it was kind of like a freak injury at the beginning of the sectional week practice. He was out, and it was a bummer for him. It was a tough way to end,” East coach Chris Cooper said. “He had the knee surgery to put it together and had a great offseason. He looked really good. He started the year great and aggravated it again. Getting back in and missing a month worth of competition is never ideal during the season, but he is starting to dial in and get back where he was.
“Ethan is super coachable, and one of the most coachable kids I’ve had. He’s dialed in and he’s paying attention,” Cooper added. “He wrestled for us in youth for a long time and certainly was one of those kids that didn’t have success early on. He has earned every ounce of success just through hard work, assistance and never giving up. Getting beat in the sectional final, and then turning that around to a win at regional is just tremendous. When he’s confident, he’s as good as any.”
One of the three losses for Poling came in the sectional final when he lost to Ethan Rose of Switzerland County by fall. Poling had to wait seven days later to avenge his loss during Saturday’s regional when he scored a 10-1 major decision against Rose.
Poling said his mental state was a big difference when he wrestled at the sectional and at the regional and said he hopes to continue with the same mentality he had at regional. He hopes to punch his to state with wins in at least his first two matches Saturday.
“It was really nice to win regional, especially after getting that loss back,” Poling said. “For semistate, I just have to have a lot of confidence. That’s one thing I’ve been struggling with a little bit because that’s probably why I lost at sectional is because I had already defeated myself before the match, and so I switched that around for regional, and I’ve got to make sure I have a lot of confidence going into semistate.”
