‘A 10-year plan’: Rose Hill’s improbable rise to No. 1 Kansas high school wrestling team
The rise of an unlikely Kansas high school wrestling powerhouse can be traced back a decade ago to a repurposed church building in Rose Hill.
When his military job brought James Bilby to the town southeast of Wichita in 2013, he noticed the absence of a youth wrestling club in the area. So like any motivated parent, the father of two young wrestlers started his own club.
What began as an experiment rapidly turned into a year-round operation, as the club became so popular that Bilby purchased an abandoned church building on Main Street in Rose Hill and converted it into a training facility for his South Central Punishers club.
That is when a group of 6-year-olds, including Bilby’s son, Adam, began wrestling together at the club. And it is that same group, now aged as juniors in high school, that have established Rose Hill, a program without a state championship to its credit, as the best wrestling team in Kansas.
“This has truly been a 10-year plan to get to where we’ve got,” said Bilby, who doubles as a Rose Hill assistant.
Natural ability can only take you so far in wrestling, which is a sport that tends to reward hours in the gym and mastery of technique more than most. That’s why Bilby’s club was a game-changer for Rose Hill’s wrestling program, which finally had a feeder program where kids could gain experience before high school.
The club featured experienced coaches like Bilby, Chris Saferite and Jon Probasco, whose expertise helped fast-track success for their wrestlers. It didn’t take long for the South Central Punishers to make their mark, as the coaches would drive the kids from coast to coast to compete against national competition.
“We started having some success and it was a case of success breeds success,” Saferite said.
Saferite took over a middling Rose Hill program in 2020, bringing Bilby and Probasco along with him as assistants, and the next year led the team to its first top-10 finish at the state tournament in 14 years. That improved to a fourth-place finish in Class 4A in 2022, then a second-place finish at last year’s tournament.
It tied for the best state finish in program history, yet the wrestlers felt unsatisfied.
“Ever since we lost last year and came up short, it’s been our goal to win every tournament since then and we’ve done that,” said Rose Hill junior James Bilby. “We want to do something that no one here has done before.”
The Rockets have left no doubt they have been the best team in Kansas to this point. They are 10-0 in duals, including head-to-head wins over 6A powers Maize and Washburn Rural. They have also won all six tournaments, including prestigious titles at Newton’s Tournament of Champions and Garden City’s Rocky Welton Invitational.
Under Goddard’s long championship reign, it’s almost unheard of for a 4A team to be considered the best team in Kansas. But the Rockets have spent almost the entire season ranked No. 1 by the Kansas Wrestling Coaches Association, a feat made even more impressive considering the team doesn’t have a single top-ranked wrestler in all classes. Rather the Rockets excel on the depth of their talent with nine of their 13 wrestlers currently ranked in 4A.
“I know we’re on top of the rankings, but these kids still view themselves as underdogs,” Saferite said. “We still feel like we have something to prove because we haven’t done what we want to do yet.”
Rose Hill’s loaded junior class has seven wrestlers ranked entering this weekend’s 4A regional at Andale: Johnny Leck (No. 1 at 132 pounds), Damon Ingram (No. 1 at 138), Cole Rogers (No. 1 at 215), Adam Bilby (No. 2 at 126), Samson Whitted (No. 2 at 106), Trenton Richwine (No. 3 at 113) and Tyren Emberson (No. 6 at 157). Senior Rhett Briggs (No. 2 at 165) and sophomore Sebastian Bentley (No. 3 at 120) are also ranked.
With so many talented wrestlers close in weight, Rose Hill’s practice room is as competitive as ever.
“We’ve all been training together our whole lives for this,” Adam Bilby said. “Iron sharpens iron. Our room is super tough and I know I can go down a weight class or go up a weight class and I’m going to be practicing against the best guys in the state below me or above me in the room.”
The group who began their journey together all those years ago in a repurposed church building on Main Street won’t be satisfied until they hoist the first wrestling state championship in Rose Hill history.
“Our intent is to rewrite the 4A wrestling history books,” James Bilby said. “We’re hoping to be the best 4A team that’s ever been assembled in small-town Kansas.”
