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Suwannee’s Austin McKinney is the LCR’s Wrestler of the Year. (COURTESY)
LIVE OAK — The path to a record-setting season began a year ago, almost as soon as the Suwannee wrestling season ended.
That’s when SHS coach John Wainwright’s phone started buzzing a bit more often.
“After the banquet I noticed it, the texts were more frequent,” Wainwright said. “The ‘Coach, are we going to be practicing here? Are we going to be practicing there?’
“That’s what you want to see as a coach. The kid asking, ‘Hey, I’m working out.’”
Coming off a seventh-place finish as a sophomore at 132 pounds, Austin McKinney wasn’t happy. He knew he was better than that. He was determined to prove he was better than that.
That determination and the endless time in the gym and the weight room that followed made McKinney the Lake City Reporter Wrestler of the Year.
“He just said he was going to get bigger and get prepared for college,” Wainwright said. “And boy did he get bigger.”
After his summer workouts, McKinney wrestled this past winter for the Bulldogs at 152 pounds, racking up 68 wins, a single-season school record.
The work paid off. Wainwright said McKinney was in the gym two to three times a day. McKinney said in addition to lifting weights the entire summer last year, he’d also go straight from wrestling practice back to the gym to work on his explosiveness.
When the season began, McKinney said the difference was notable.
“I just felt stronger than a lot of these guys,” he said. “But even if they had as much strength as I did, I’ve been wrestling for so long, I just used my technique.”
That combination of technique, forged from a wrestling career that began when he was 5 years old, combined with his improved strength, led to abundant success on the mat for both McKinney and the Bulldogs as a team.
McKinney won the Outstanding Wrestler belt for the upper weights at the Border Wars X tournament, which drew powerhouses from Georgia and Louisiana in addition to Florida. The wins didn’t stop there either, with McKinney one of the driving forces for an SHS team that went 51-7 in duals matches on the year. The Bulldogs won their first district and regional duals titles to advance to the state semifinal round in January.
McKinney and the Bulldogs then followed that up with district and regional titles in the IBT tournaments as well.
“All year long, every match, he was there,” Wainwright said. “He was on the kids, wanting to win those tournaments, wanting to bring home the team trophy.
“It wasn’t just about him. He was really pushing each one of them the whole season.”
He was pushing his teammates like he pushed himself, determined to finish better than the previous year.
And along the way, McKinney and Suwannee proved more than capable of reaching the milestones that the Bulldogs grasped back in their glory days of the 1980s and 1990s.
Wainwright challenged his team with a long schedule full of state powerhouses. It meant the Bulldogs, including McKinney, were facing the best of the best each and every week to prepare them for whatever the road to state may present.
McKinney was always up to the challenge, entering the state tournament with just three losses to 64 wins.
At the state duals, SHS fell 49-19 to champion Jepsen Beach in the semifinals with McKinney losing to Dylan Fox, the eventual individual state champion. At the Gene Gorman Duals at Charlotte the following week, McKinney regrouped with a pin against Fox.
It was just one of many pins that McKinney accumulated on the year as he probably has another school record under his belt as well.
That success comes, McKinney said, from his preparation. Every match is recorded so he can go back over in detail, to see what those opponents like to do.
It also comes out of necessity. While riding on top is his strong suit — Wainwright said he rode Somerset Academy’s Michael Sainz for the entire match to an 8-6 win — McKinney said his two areas of most improvement are on bottom and his stamina.
“I get gassed in the third period, still,” he said. “I had to (rack up pins), or I’d get gassed. I had to do it.”
But in addition to the preparation and the necessity, Wainwright said his star pupil also has innate wrestling ability that just can’t be taught.
When he’s on the mat, McKinney can sense when the time is right to strike and when his opponent is about finished.
“You have to feel it when you fly over or you have to feel when you take a shot and they’re blocking you,” Wainwright said. “You’re driving them one way and they’ve got a good block, you have to feel it and take them completely back the opposite way. And be able to do that.
“He has that. He’s got all the tools. He’s got a killer instinct in him. If he feels it, he’ll finish a match immediately. Austin’s the one that if he hits something and he feels it, you’re one. He’s already got you.”
Right now, much like a year ago, McKinney feels frustration and disappointment on how his record-setting campaign ended.
In the second round of the state meet, Mater Lakes’ Kalias Nazario edged him for a 4-1 decision. In the blood rounds, McKinney then also got pinned by Palm Bay’s Nathan Furman, having to settle for a fifth-place finish.
Wainwright said the texts are already starting to show up with McKinney, and others, trying to get back into the gym.
“I wasn’t happy with this year either,” McKinney said. “The first guy I lost to, I took that one rough. I’m going to be working a lot harder this summer.”
ALL-AREA TEAM
106: Eli Jolicoeur
Suwannee, sophomore
Was runner-up at districts and then placed third at regionals to qualify for state, finishing the season with a 44-15 record.
113: Justin Contreras
Suwannee, sophomore
Won a district title and was runner-up at regionals before placing eighth at the Class 1A state meet, capping off a 50-8 season.
120: Topher Pearson
Suwannee, junior
Was runner-up at the district and regional meets before placing an area-best third at the Class 1A state meet, which capped off a 51-14 season.
126: Brody Boehm
Suwannee, senior
Won district and regional titles before placing fifth at the Class 1A state meet to cap off a 59-8 season.
138: Ayden Kirby
Suwannee, senior
Was runner-up at districts and then placed fourth at regionals to qualify for state, finishing the season with a 33-21 record.
145: Marshall White
Suwannee, sophomore
Was runner-up at districts and then placed third at regionals to qualify for state, finishing the season with a 41-12 record.
152: Austin McKinney
Suwannee, junior
The LCR’s Wrestler of the Year posted the best record in the area at 68-5 that included district and regional titles, setting a new program mark for wins in the process. He finished the season with a fifth-place finish at the Class 1A state meet.
160: Austin Howard
Suwannee, senior
Won a district title and finished third at regionals before placing fifth at the Class 1A state meet, capping off a 57-9 season.
170: Dustin Wood
Suwannee, senior
Won a district title and was then runner-up at regionals to qualify, finishing the season with a 46-15 record.
COACH OF THE YEAR
John Wainwright, Suwannee
Led the Bulldogs to District 2-1A and Region 1-1A duals championships to move on to state, where they advanced all the way to the 1A duals semifinals. Wainwright’s SHS squad later won the District 2-1A IBT title and Region 1-1A title, which was their first regional IBT championship since 2005. Nine wrestlers qualified for the Class 1A state meet with five reaching the medal stand, which helped the Bulldogs finish ninth as a team. Suwannee finished the season with a 51-7 duals record.