Benedictine senior wrestler Connor Desautels won the region 1-4A 132 lb championship with a pin over his opponent. This title marks the fourth region championship of Desautels’s high school career, a feat only three Cadets had accomplished before Connor.
“Every time that you won the year before, you’re held to a standard. You have to win again,” said Desautels. “I definitely hold myself to a higher standard every time I wrestle these tournaments, especially the ones I’ve already won, because I know that my goal is to be the best.”
The four-time champion holds a 25-2 record this year despite missing much of the offseason and December with injuries.
“I missed 3-4 weeks, but I just made sure to keep my head in the right space, watching wrestling, being at practice, and studying my past wrestling,” Desautels said.
Connor is a team captain, and his four-peat inspires the wrestlers on his team.
“It gives the younger guys a wrestling role model to say, ‘Ok, I want to be that good, and here’s the process of how it’s gonna happen, and it’s evidence that it can happen,” said Benedictine wrestling coach Joe Tvrdy. “As a ninth grader, his only responsibility was to himself, and to do everything he could to make himself better. Now he has a responsibility to the team, and as a captain, he has a responsibility to the coaches. Over four years he’s really grown into that.”
Tvrdy also praised Desautels’s selfless attitude, saying, “Connor is also the kid that’s in here before practice cleaning up, mopping the mats, all the little things that we have to do that nobody wants to do.”
Desautels also competes in off-season tournaments to refine his craft and broaden his wrestling experience.
“I just have to push myself, even in the offseason, to be the best,” Connor said. “The tournaments are a lot bigger in the offseason, you’ve got the national tournaments. You’re wrestling kids from coast to coast, which definitely helps, seeing a lot of different categories of wrestling, different states of wrestling, seeing how other people train. It really gets you ready for the season.”
Now, with his fourth regional championship in the bag, Connor is on the path to winning the state championship after finishing second in his junior year.
“[Winning the silver medal] definitely adds a lot of motivation. Doing it as a junior, and being a senior now, my thing is I can’t get worse than I did last year,” Desautels said. “I have to make sure that I’m working harder than the kid across the state, working in a different room. That’s always my mindset; don’t be thinking about the dude who’s working harder than you, be the dude who’s working harder than everyone else. Be the person that people want to be.”
Next up for Connor is the sectional tournament on February 8th at Harris County.
Photo Credit: Courtsey justshootstports on Instagram
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