A sectional runner-up and first-round regional loser a year ago, Chesterton wrestler Caden Mahaffey setting sights way higher and backing it up so far

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

For the second year in a row, the Chesterton boys wrestling roster does not have anyone who has experienced wrestling at the state tournament.
Six have made it as far as the semi-state round, where two wins punch a ticket to state. Senior Lucas Anderson has made it to the ticket round each of the past two seasons and lost by technical fall both times. Junior Quiroz lost in the first round at semi-state as a freshman and was pinned in overtime in the second round of last season. He has come the closest to a victory in the ticket round.
Emeric Ritter and Greyson Strickland lost in the first round of semi-state last season and Connor Olson and Patrick Mochen lost in the first round of semi-state two seasons ago.
Sixteen wrestlers from each of the 14 weights advance to Indianapolis to wrestle at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
Limiting the list of possibilities for Trojans making it to state this season to the six who have advanced to semi-state in the past would be a mistake.
A case could be made that Caden Mahaffey, who usually wrestles at 150, is the team’s most improved wrestler. Even though he didn’t make it past the first round of the regional and was sectional runner-up last season, he’s a darkhorse candidate to carry his season all the way to Gainbridge.
Mahaffey takes a 10-1 record to the Delta Duals this weekend and is the only one on the roster who can boast a win against mighty Crown Point, even if it did take a little roster juggling to make it happen.
The Bulldogs the No. 1 wrestler in the state at 150, according to indianamat.com, Clinton Shepherd, a Penn State recruit. So, rather than feed Mahaffey to Shepherd, Trevino bumped him up to 157 to face Michael Kurth. Mahaffey scored a takedown 34 seconds into the match and prevailed, 4-0.
In keeping with coach Andy Trevino’s philosophy that it’s best to wrestle your style, Mahaffey does not look at video of his opponents.
“I’ve never watched film,” he said. “I kind of just want to go out there, see what happens and do my own thing. I don’t care what the other people do. Everybody wrestles differently. Just because they wrestled someone else that way doesn’t mean they’ll wrestle me that way.”
Mahaffey remembered facing Kurth in a summer tournament.
“I beat him by one point,” Mahaffey said. “That’s all I knew. So I knew it was going to be a good match. He’s a very defensive guy. He doesn’t do a lot of attacking. I would shoot in there and he would be very good at defending it.”
Mahaffey described part of his own style as, “I try to move more than my opponents and just try to catch them.”
Mochen, who wrestles up at 190 most of the time because Anderson has a lock on 175, is Mahaffey’s most frequent drilling partner.
“He’s a little bigger than me but I think he’s a good partner for me,” Mahaffey said of the look he gets at a strong opponent. He’ll also wrestle live with Greyson Strickland at times, and if he feels he needs to go against quickness, he seeks out Luke Johnson (138), another wrestler who has shown improvement early this season.
Mahaffey wrestled in elementary school, took a pass in middle school, and returned to it as a freshman.
“I decided I wanted to do it again. I just missed it I guess,” Mahaffey said.
He’s wrestling better than ever this season, so naturally he’s enjoying it more than ever after a busy summer wrestling in the room.
“It’s more fun when you’re beating up on kids,” Mahaffey said.
He had a big win in the Goshen Duals on the first day of the season, pinning Bellmont’s highly regarded Sam Wolpert 30 seconds into Sudden Victory time.
Mahaffey’s lone loss came at the hands of Portage’s Kristian Tapia by major decision.
Rankings tend to become more reliable as a season progresses because too much guessing is involved early on. Nonetheless, the Chesterton wrestlers who appeared in the indianamat.com semi-state top 10 rankings: 132: Quiroz: 3; 138: Johnson: 9; 150: Mahaffey: 9; 165: Strickland: 8; 175: Anderson: 4; 285: Olson: 9.
The top four finishers at each semi-state advance to state.