Regardless of the wrestling tournament, Norwich senior Kegan Levesque is a hard person to miss. The thickly-muscled 195-pounder usually sports some sort of creative hairstyle that sets him apart from other wrestlers. Levesque is also noticed because he is usually in the hunt for a tournament championship.
A three-time place finisher in the Section IV tournament and a back-to-back Section IV Class B champion, Levesque is off to the best start of his long varsity career. and he proved he will be a force in the higher weights after his performance last weekend at the 49th Annual Clyde Cole Tournament, hosted by Oxford.
A number two seed at 195 pounds, Levesque was only required to wrestle two matches earning a first-round bye into the semifinals. Even though his path to a championship was short, Levesque’s workload was heavy.
Levesque’s first match of the season was against Wyoming Seminary’s Matt Doggett for the right to compete in the finals. Sem was a runaway winner in the team championship, and it had a wrestler place – or win – in every weight division. Although Doggett was not seeded entering the tourney, he was indeed a formidable foe. “You know that if they come from Wyoming Seminary, they are a really good wrestler,” said Norwich coach Joe Downey. “(Kegan) wrestled smart all three periods, and did a good job holding the kid down and riding him out. It was a really good match.”
After an 8-5 win over Doggett, Levesque faced another unseeded wrestler, Joel Roselle of Greene in the finals. Roselle upset top-seeded Mark Viviano of B-G/Afton, so Norwich and Levesque knew their finals opponent was no slouch. “We knew going in that (Roselle’s) game plan would be to hold on, stall it out, and hope for Kegan to gas out,” Downey said. “He wrestled another smart match, and it seems that at this point, he is where he normally is at the end of the year.”
Levesque, who placed in the top four in the Clyde Cole tournament the previous two years, took a big step up the ladder to win his first crown, and it could be a precursor to bigger things down the road. The Norwich senior’s breakthrough victory earns him our distinction as Smith Ford Supercenter/Evening Sun Athlete of the Week.
“Every year, it seems like Kegan comes into the season a little bit behind,” Downey said. “He’s ready to go this year.”
Levesque shed a few pounds – but not the muscle – with a change in diet and focus on better conditioning. A solid 200 pounds last season competing in the 215-pound division, Levesque entered the wrestling room last month in the 185- to 190-pound range, and has stayed at that weight through the first month of practice. With the adjusted weight classes this year, Levesque has more options than ever before. He no longer has to roll with young men 15 to 20 pounds heavier, nor does he have to cut weight for his current weight class. But, if he decides to drop a few pounds, the 182-pound weight class is now a viable option. Whatever Levesque decides to do, it will be with the aim of winning a Section IV title.
“He’s been pushing himself to get over the hump,” Downey said. “He’s one of those kids (in tournaments) who is always there and always battling. He was pretty successful at 215 last year, but we’ll have to see where people go at the end of the year. He’s weighing in around 185 or 186, so we have our options open. It’s a pretty good situation for him, and it’s a pretty good situation for us.”