Four years ago, Kevin Ward started building a college wrestling program with not much more than his own personal vision.
The Ouachita Baptist coach has a little bit more now.
Ouachita Baptist completed its fourth season of competition two weeks ago, finishing fourth at the NCAA Division II wrestling championships in Cleveland. Five OBU wrestlers qualified for the national meet, and all five placed in the top eight to earn All-America honors, highlighted by Joshua Myers’ runner-up finish at 141 pounds.
Ward was named Division II national coach of the year following the Tigers’ breakthrough season, which provides him tangible evidence of success to go along with his vision and a three-year-old wrestling facility on campus while still building Arkansas’ first collegiate wrestling program in six decades.
“It’s satisfying,” Ward said. “The trophy doesn’t mean a whole lot to me, to be honest. But for them, it’s incredible. It means a lot to me to have them have that team trophy.”
Ward said he didn’t have any expectations heading into the national meet with regard to where the team could finish. Considering he was bringing only five wrestlers and some teams - eventual champion Notre Dame (Ohio) being one of them - qualified all 10 wrestlers, challenging for the top spot was a reach.
So Ward focused on individual finishes. Garrett Evans finished eighth at 125 pounds, 133-pounder Nathan Rodriguez and 157-pounder Bobby Williams each finished seventh, Dallas Smith finished third at 184 pounds and Myers came within seconds of the school’s first national title.
Myers, a fourth-year junior from Cushing, Okla., was tied 1-1 with 18 seconds left before being penalized for stalling, which gave Daniel Ownbey of North Carolina-Pembroke a 2-1 victory.
“He felt cheated out of a chance,” Ward said. “Who knows if he would have won,but cheated out of a chance to find out? Yeah, that would burn. So he can use that.”
Having an individual win a national title is the next step for the program, Ward said. Myers will return next season, as will Evans, Rodriguez and Smith. Those four give OBU a solid core to challenge for the national title.
Ouachita Baptist’s fourth place showing was 2 ½ points behind third-place Maryville (Mo.) and 8 ½ points behind second-place Nebraska-Kearney, but quite a gap existed between those three and champion Notre Dame, which scored 99 ½ points.
Closing that gap, Ward said, includes qualifying more wrestlers for the meet and getting an individual national champion. If those happen, higher team scores will follow.
“We have guys on the team that are capable of winning it, and we will have a national champ next year,” Ward said. “I really believe that. I believed it this year and it didn’t happen, but I have no choice. I can believe it or I can not. So I’m going to believe it.”
Sports, Pages 23 on 03/27/2014