The St. Louis High School wrestling team won their team district tournament in their home gym Wednesday, Feb. 6.

This is the first step to winning the first wrestling team state championship in school history. In wrestling, the qualification process has three steps: the first step is to win a district, then the team progresses to the regional level, where they compete against the other district winners at the Region. Finally, the eight regions compete against each other to determine a state championship team.  

In all the years of St. Louis wrestling, never has a team been ranked as high as third in the state. As coach Kevin Kuhn emphasized, “What we have now that we haven’t had is that we are far more balanced than in the past. We don’t necessarily have any superstars, but at the top, bottom, and middle we have kids that can wrestle anybody. Which, in addition to our depth, makes a team that can compete with anemone.” This truly shows how much these guys have to rely on each other. Without the trust that everyone will do their job, this team could not be where it is today. 

The team is also super excited about the opportunity to become something more. Every team is special and no one team is ever the same as the year before, and it never seems to fail that winning these big championships always brings teams closer together. As Senior Nate March said, “It was a business trip and we took care of business. We’ve all worked hard this year and putting together a district title really brought us back into focus.” 

The Sharks will be on the mat again Wednesday, Feb. 12, where they will compete in their Individual District Tournament.