5 Madison County youth wrestlers take home awards at national tournament

BRISTOL, Tenn. - "The future of Madison County (wrestling) is on its way. The best has not yet arrived," said Madison Wrestling Club coach Seth Van Horn after five local wrestlers from the upstart K-12 wrestling club earned five top three finishes at a national tournament in Tennessee earlier this month.

The Madison Wrestling Club took nine kids to the State Line Brawl in Bristol, Tennessee, Dec. 5.

In all, the club features 14 youths from around the county, according to head coach Seth Van Horn, who revamped the club in 2018 after its dissolution in 2017.

Sixth grader Xander Cecil earned first place, while sixth grader Lane Beaver earned second place honors at the tournament.

"(Xander) has wrestled for me for a couple years now," Van Horn said. "He's developing exponentially. He's one of those kids that's going to be successful as long as you don't screw up. The only thing that can hold him back is bonehead coaching. He's a good athlete. He's a good kid. I don't think he's made anything below an A in his life.

"He understands the wrestling IQ of it - he understands the timing and the things that it takes to be successful. He's developing things very well. I wouldn't be surprised to see him on the top of a podium at a state tournament before he leaves high school."

The coach said he expects to see more success in Beaver's future too.

"The kid who beat (Beaver) was an All-American last year," Van Horn said. "So, Beaver has really made strides. Lane Beaver is one of our better kids."

Brothers Gage Thomason, a seventh grader, and Jack Thomason, a second grader, also took home first place and third place honors, respectively. Wyatt Bernhardt also earned second place honors at the Brawl.

According to the coach, Bernhardt shows a lot of potential as a first-year wrestler.

"He's a tough kid," Van Horn said. "You can't teach aggressiveness and physicality. So when you come in and the door and already have it, a lot of my job's already done. He's a tough kid. He's a good kid, and he's got a really bright future ahead of him here."

Van Horn, who is from Illinois and originally went to college to wrestle at Iowa State University before enduring a torn achilles, has also coached club wrestling in Texas.

Van Horn, 34, said the club has grown tremendously in his three years as coach.

"When we first started, we had four kids on our team," he said. "Now we're up to 14. All four members that we began with, those four members are now on the middle school team. I've got kids that are in kindergarten, and here in a couple months when the high school (season) lets out, I'll have seniors in high school that are in here. It's a pure K-12 organization."

Two MHS wrestlers, senior Tacoma "Taco" Reda and junior Kyle Jamerson are also club members when the season lets out.

"That was one of the reasons I started this club," "A lot of these guys who wanted to wrestle in the summer, wanted to gain experience, wanted to be the absolute best, did not have an opportunity to do that here in Madison County. They had to drive either to Boone or to Asheville. I wanted to give them an opportunity to stay home."

The coach said the club's regimented style - it is open 10 months a year and the team practices twice a week at minimum - is the norm throughout the Midwest, and he hopes to instill that standard in Madison County.

"I'm trying to bring a little bit of that Midwestern flavor to the mountains of Western North Carolina," he said. "It's hard for kids to begin wrestling and wrestle for three months a year and expect to be very successful by the end of their high school careers. So, we try to give the guys as much experience as possible. We have tournaments that we wrestle all throughout the year."

According to the coach, Madison Wrestling Club's functionality differs from a team structure in that it caters to each member's skill level.

"We've got some guys on every end of the spectrum - guys that are brand new, just getting their feet wet and just learning what wrestling is, and then we've got some guys who are really able to put it together at a really high level," Van Horn said.

Still, Van Horn said he and assistant coach Wade Cecil work to ensure their wrestlers are serious about their craft.

"Our guys wrestle like they're in college while they're in elementary school," he said. "We don't come in here and play around. We are hyper-focused, drill-oriented. We work on the most dominant positions. We drill it until we can't get it wrong, not until we get it right."

According to Van Horn, wrestling in Madison County has grown "exponentially" since 2018.

"Madison County is a sleeping giant," he said. "With the right investments in the youth program, middle school program and high school programs, Madison County can be a state championship level program within the decade. Everything is here. We're just trying to jolt it and wake it up."

'Sense of family'

Van Horn stressed the importance of family in the wrestling world.

"My father was a wrestler, and my grandfather was a wrestler," he said. "It's kind of a family ordeal."

Van Horn called his wife Amylia his "rock" and said she's so supportive of the club.

"Any time I'm having a bad day or we have a bad tournament and I get down on myself, she centers me and brings me back to Earth," he said. "Whether we had a bad day and I need uplifting, or we had a good day and I need to be grounded, she helps me do that."

Van Horn said he anticipates he will keep building on the family's wrestling DNA with the couple's two-year-old son, Jonathan, who weighs 73 pounds, according to the coach.

"We're looking forward to bringing him into the club next year, because wrestling is a family sport," Van Horn said. "Very rarely does only one person in the family wrestle. It's mostly a family endeavor. We're trying to create that sense of family and community between all of our athletes - elementary through the high school level."

Van Horn said he expects to stick around a while in Madison County and continue to build that family and community feel among his program.

"I've been really blessed to be involved with a lot of really good wrestlers and really good families as well," Van Horn said. "I wasn't born here - I was born and raised about as far away from Madison County as a guy could be - but my roots are here. This is a beautiful place."

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: 5 Madison County youth wrestlers take home awards at national tourney