Columbus North’s Cohen Long, left, and Columbus East’s Caleb Kirkpatrick square off in the 150-pound final in the Jan. 31 Jennings County Sectional.
The good news for Columbus East senior Caleb Kirkpatrick and Columbus North junior Cohen Long is punching their tickets to the Boys Wrestling State Finals. The bad news is the duo will have the toughest roads to the state championship match.
Long and Kirkpatrick both will compete at 150 pounds in opening round the IHSAA Boys Wrestling State Finals Tournament at 3 p.m. Friday at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. While Long is the lone Bull Dog to qualify, Kirkpatrick is one of six Olympians to make it.
Should either advance, they would compete in the state quarterfinals that begin at 9 a.m. Saturday, with the semifinals to follow. The third-, fifth- and seventh places matches will begin at 4:30 p.m. Saturday with the championship matches beginning at 7:30 p.m. later that evening. All wrestlers in every weight class that advance to the quarterfinals Saturday will wrestle three more matches Saturday, win or lose.
The 16th-ranked Kirkpatrick finished runner-up at Evansville Semistate Saturday, falling to No. 2 Tommy Gibbs of Brownsburg in the final. Kirkpatrick’s first-round opponent at state is Cathedral junior Caden Rodgers. This is Kirkpatrick’s first time making it to the state finals.
“It was electric. It was mind-blowing. I had some tough matches all throughout the tournament,” Kirkpatrick said. “It’s just electric being able to grind all those tough matches out and pull out wins against guys that were previously ranked higher or above me. Punching my ticket to the state finals has been amazing.”
Caleb Kirkpatrick
Kirkpatrick has lived in Columbus for about five years. He originally is from Bend, Oregon, and the family moved to Columbus when his stepfather landed a job in Greensburg. He’s been wrestling since he was 5 years old and wrestled on a club team when he was in Oregon.
After moving to Columbus, Kirkpatrick wrestled on the team at Central Middle School in eighth grade and joined the East wrestling team when he was a freshman and made lifelong friends from the team.
“They are all such amazing guys. I made a family here. I made a brotherhood here, and you couldn’t ask for anything more,” Kirkpatrick said.
If Kirkpatrick prevails against Rodgers, then he’d have a potential quarterfinal matchup against top-ranked Clinton Shepherd of Crown Point, who is 34-1 on the season.
“Caleb has put a lot of time in and bought into our program and bought into all of the training that we do,” East coach Chris Cooper said. “He’s been real stingy with points, which has kept him in a ton of matches. With the schedule that we wrestle, he’s wrestled a lot of tough kids throughout the year, so he’s been in that situation numerous times winning by takedown late, getting the last minute pin or whatever the case may be. He’s taken things one step at a time and putting it all together.”
Cohen Long
The fourth-ranked Long finished fourth at the Evansville Semistate. He lost by tech fall to Gibbs in the semifinals, then he lost a 4-1 decision to No. 9 Marcus Malone of Center Grove in the third-place match.
“I would say he doesn’t attach himself to the winning and losing as much. When he’s got a bad match, he knows he had a bad match, but he knows he’s gotten better over the course of the year,” North coach Matt Joyce said. “He is excited to go compete. He’s a very competitive kid. He wants to win. For him, I feel like it’s a pretty good balance.”
Because of the fourth-place finish, Long has a tough task ahead of him if he wants to make it to the state quarterfinals. He will face No. 3 Gunner Butt of New Palestine, who is 33-1.
Friday’s matchup against Butt won’t be completely unknown to Long. The duo have faced each other before a few times. Earlier the season, Butt won the matchup between the duo.
“We wrestled four or five times in our careers. Just having a familiar opponent is like every time you wrestle someone, you develop a feel for them,” Long said. “I think it’s definitely beneficial compared to not having someone I wrestled before.”
Kirkpatrick beat Long in the East-North dual meet in December, and the pair have split matches in the postseason, with Kirkpatrick winning in the sectional final and Long prevailing in the regional final. They did not meet in the semistate.
Regardless of how either fares this weekend, it will be a great experience for both of them.
“It’s a super cool atmosphere, especially Friday night and it’s only one match. Everyone is paying attention to those matches, so it’s super cool. Long said. “I won conference, I won regional, qualified for state again, so I think it was a good season.”
“I think this season and the last four seasons have been amazing for me,” Kirkpatrick said. “I’m really proud of the team, proud of myself, and I don’t think with whatever happens that I’ll be disappointed. The sun will still rise tomorrow.”
