China’s Wynn Pooler captures state title in wrestling

Atop the podium with gold medal.

First Erskine freshman to accomplish feat

by Roland D. Hallee

Wynn in action. Photos taken at the Class B state championships on Saturday, February 19, which were held at Morse High School, in Bath.

Wynn Pooler, a freshman at Erskine Academy, in South China, won a state title in wrestling over last weekend.

According to head coach Tyler Bradbury, he’s the first freshman in Erskine Academy history to do so. Apparently he’s only the second wrestler in Erskine Academy history to win conference, regional, and state titles all in the same season (the first was Jake Peavey, who is now a nationally-ranked NCAA wrestler at the University of Southern Maine).

Erskine Academy competes in Class B, and Wynn wrestles in the 106-pound division. He is the son of Wes and Abby Pooler, of China.

Wynn has been wrestling since he was in kindergarten, and started competing at national tournaments when he was in the fifth grade, when he traveled to New Jersey with Team Maine. Since then, he has wrestled for national club teams based in states such as New Jersey, Georgia, and Maryland, at various national-level tournaments.

In Maine, the largest tournaments typically only have 3 – 4 mats and last a single day. The largest national tournament Wynn has competed at had 58 mats, and lasted three days. While Maine has some great wrestlers, it is rare for two equally-strong wrestlers to meet outside of the state tournament. In order to have great competition consistently, it requires a lot of out-of-state travel.

The top four place-winners from Class A and the top four place-winners from Class B for each weight-class will now compete at the New England Qualifier, otherwise known as “All-States”, at the end of this week. The top three place-winners for each weight from that tournament will then compete at the “New England Interscholastic Wrestling Championship”, being held in Providence, Rhode Island, on March 5. Then the weekend of March 25-27, Wynn will be competing at the National High School Coaches Association (NHSCA) High School Nationals, in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where many of the best high school wrestlers in the country will be competing.

Wynn “enjoys the fact that while wrestling is a team sport, the actual competition is individual, and you don’t have to rely on others to be successful. The sport requires grit, toughness, and discipline. If you fail, you can’t blame others; you just need to learn from your mistakes, stay positive, and work on improving.”

Wynn does want to wrestle in college, but hasn’t yet begun to consider where that might be. If he maintains his straight-A average in school, he should have some options.