Adams Looks To Repeat

Stallings Hopes Addition Will Help His Young Springdale Team

Joey Adams (right), then with Springdale Har-Ber, wrestles Russellville’s Jesse Johnson for the championship in the 106-pound class in the Central Arkansas Christian Wrestling Tournament at CAC. Johnson won.
Joey Adams (right), then with Springdale Har-Ber, wrestles Russellville’s Jesse Johnson for the championship in the 106-pound class in the Central Arkansas Christian Wrestling Tournament at CAC. Johnson won.

— Joey Adams likes to imagine the wrestlers he’ll face this season are sitting on their couches and watching TV as he’s lifting weights.

He also likes to think he’s doing pushups his competitors refuse to do.

Springdale High wrestling coach Jamie Stallings said Adams typically arrives 30-45 minutes early to the team’s 7 a.m. practices. The sophomore made it a point in summer to wake up about 8 a.m. and start his workouts, all in the hope of repeating as state champion.

“You’ve just got to know that you’ve got to come back working harder than ever,” Adams said. “You can’t just expect that you’re going to win automatically coming off that defending state championship.”

Plenty has changed for Adams — both physically and geographically — since he defeated Russellville’s Jesse Johnson to win a state championship in the 106-pound weight class as a freshman.

In August, Adams tranerred from Springdale Har- Ber to Springdale High, where his stepfather is Bulldogs boys basketball coach Brad Stamps. Adams was named a team captain less than two months after arriving on campus.

“Joey came in and worked his butt off,” Stallings said. “After about six weeks of him being here, he’d (gotten) to the position where his teammates wanted him to be a captain. It’s the first time I’ve ever had a sophomore as a captain.

“It’s a pretty big deal. He’s a natural leader.”

And he’s more natural wrestling above 106 pounds.

Adams (5-foot-4, 116-pound)is moving up to the 113-pound weight class after adding a few pounds simply from being a year older. He said he spent the offseason working harder to deal with the additional weight as well as the pressure that comes with winning a state championship as a freshman.

“You can’t slack as much because you have guys that have a price on your head, that want to beat you,” Adams said.

Stallings hopes the sophomore’s addition will help his young Springdale team place in the top 10 after finishing third-to-last at last year’s state tournament. The Bulldogs should benefit from the school’s new yearlong wres- tling program, and Stallings said heavyweight wrestler Drake Kendrick has shown significant improvement in the offseason.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt when Springdale’s underclassmen can turn in practice to Adams, who has worked on improving his strength, quickness and takedowns in the past few months.

“Joey is a superhard worker,” Stallings said. “And so when you have a guy that’s had success and he’s still working as hard as he does, it’s a great example for the other kids.”

Adams admitted he feels stronger now than a year ago, thanks in part to his difficult offseason workouts with his brother, Jarrett, who’s also a former Har-Ber wrestler. The two brothers ran and lifted weights together with Jarrett pushing Joey to avoid a sophomore slump and win another state title.

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