Cougars spoil senior night for Timberwolves

The Clovis Cougars topped the Clovis East Timberwolves 61-9, winning 12 of 14 matches on Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2020. (Ryan Kish/Clovis Roundup)

For Clovis East, senior night fell well short of the result it was hoping to send its senior class out as the Timberwolves were defeated soundly by Clovis High, 61-9, on Wednesday night.

De’Andre Smith’s opening match win for the Timberwolves in the 160-lbs weight class failed to materialize into any significant advantage that the Timberwolves could capitalize on.

The Cougars went on to win 12 of the 14 matches, with only the aforementioned Smith and Jonah Schmidtke in the 285-lbs weight class winning their matches for the Timberwolves.

Despite the one-sided nature of the meet, Gabe Schaefer, the director of wrestling at Clovis High had positive words for the Timberwolves.

“They’re building now,” Schaefer said of the Timberwolves program. “They’re getting better and they have a good junior high coach that came in. They’ll be more competitive in the years to come, but we have a pretty good team this year, so it is about what we thought.” Schaefer added.

The Cougars still have Buchanan to come on their schedule, and the meet, known simply as; ‘the duel’ will certainly be what the Cougars have their eyes on.

Their cross-town rivals at Buchanan have gotten the better of them in both the Zinkin Classic and the Doc B Invitational.

As Clovis High prepares to go into the meat of the schedule, keeping the team’s plethora of young players in the right mindset will be crucial. According to Schaefer, the Cougar’s senior leadership is set to play a critical part in the final stretch of the season and in future seasons.

“Our senior leadership is helping them [the lower classmen] and making sure they buy into the program and what we’re doing. Once they get bought in, they develop really well and really fast.” Schaefer said.

Ryan graduated from Buchanan High School in 2018 and is currently a student at Clovis Community College and plans to transfer to a four-year school to complete a degree in journalism or political science. Ryan was born in Pennsylvania, has lived in four states, and thinks the Yankees need to be more creative with the design of their batting practice hats.