This past weekend, senior Luke Suro concluded his long wrestling career at LHS by placing 4th in the state competition. He ended the season with an extremely impressive 51 win to 5 loss record, hitting over 100 wins in his high school career.
Suro started wrestling in his freshman year, but has been doing combat sports like jiu-jitsu since he was four years old. He has also been involved in cross country and track at his time at LHS, but states that wrestling has impacted him the most.
“I’m a multi-sport athlete so I do cross country and I do track. They’ve changed who I am, but they really haven’t had the effect wrestling has. I have involved myself so much into it that it basically became my life. Whenever I’m not doing school, I’m probably wrestling. I always do one thing a day for wrestling, that was the goal, whether that be running, or lifting weights. I’ve probably wrestled every single day for the past year to get where I am.”
This year, Suro made it to the state competitions after beating the same competitor he fell short to last year in the NCCT tournament run by the University of Northern Colorado. Suro recounts this achievement.
“It’s a great feeling, you win in the semis and regionals and get your hand raised, and no matter what happens now you’re going to state and you get to wrestle at Ball Arena, which is a life-changing experience.”
Suro describes his journey to fourth place at the state competition.
“The first round, I got taken down within three seconds because I just wasn’t ready to wrestle. The second match was a close match, I was up against the second seed in the semi finals. I wrestled great. I came up short in the semi-finals against a guy I think I lost to two times during the season. He beat me, but just barely, the score was 3-2.”
Suro’s wrestling career at LHS has been full of ups and downs.
“As a whole, I started out unsure I wanted to do it. I had a big injury my sophomore year, and my junior year, I used that injury as fuel to get better and I got better.”
“It’s been an incredible experience, especially starting at Littleton’s team with there being seven guys on the team and ending with there being more than triple that amount at the start of the season. I think it’s definitely changed who I am and I’ll never be the same.”
One of the main reasons wrestling at LHS is so important to Suro is because of the team’s unity and friendship.
“You can look at the sideline at duals or during tournaments, we’re always together. We’re always on the matside supporting each other. No one’s left behind. When someone’s wrestling, everyone on the team is watching them. It’s not everybody’s doing their own thing. In practice, everybody’s friends with each other.”
Suro plans on continuing wrestling in upcoming years. He plans on continuing high school wrestling in the summer doing freestyle wrestling, a type of wrestling with a different rule set. He also plans on wrestling in college, but is still undecided on where.
Congratulations to Suro and the boys wrestling team for their success this season!
