John Lowery is a junior 126-pound wrestling star from Grove High School who said at the beginning of the season, he and his team are working hard to get ready. 

“My individual goals this year are to give my all at every single practice and set myself up to go undefeated” Lowery said. “I want to go off and win regionals, and finish it up with a state title.”

“As a team, I just want to help push them all to their limits and end up with a wining season, then qualify for dual state,” he added. 

Lowery said he fell in love with wrestling in the seventh grade, and he said the sport helps push him past his limits and become a better athlete. He enjoys now being one of the older wrestlers on the squad. 

“It’s a great role to have,” he said. “Time has shown that younger groups look up to their older leaders and try to do their best to be like their leaders. So I work my butt off to get them to see it’s better for the team. As far as helping them out, I get on them about not giving their best in practice, and I go help our coach in our Takedown Club. I invite our younger guys to come so they can get extra work in.” 

For most young athletes, hard work is mixed in with a healthy dose of play. Such is not the case for Lowery. 

“I don’t really call it free time,” he said. “It’s more of extra work. I don’t take days off. If I’m at home with nothing to do, I run or I work out. I get up at 5 a.m. most mornings and run five miles, then at the end of the day I go to practice. If there is still time left, I run another five miles.” 

Lowery said last year he was the recipient of the Most Improved Wrestler award, and the Iron Man award for not missing a day of practice.