He spent seven days and six nights cooped up in a barn located between Urbana and
St. Paris, Ohio.
He ate there, and he slept there. Most important, he wrestled there.
Hunter Lange battled state champions from all over the country for eight hours a day and then slept all night in that same spot on that same mat.
“Fifty-four of the 62 guys in my group were state place-winners,” said Lange, now a Central High School sophomore. “It was a chance to see how good kids from all over the country really are.
“It put things in perspective.”
The Jeff Jordan State Champ Camp certainly made Monday, the first day allowed for practice by the WIAA, tolerable for Lange.
The hardest part of it all, according to Lange, was waking up at 5 a.m., so he could be to the first practice on time an hour later.
“That wasn’t a lot of fun,” said Lange, who was 29-12 and a Division 1 sectional qualifier at 152 pounds as a freshman, “but it feels good to get going.”
The Red Raiders practiced from 6 to 7 a.m. and again from 4 to 6 p.m.
The sessions likely didn’t compare to the ones he faced in Ohio at the end of June and beginning of July.
One drill at the camp paired up participants and required them wrestle for one minute and then rest for 15 seconds. They did that 120 times.
Lange, who attended the camp with friends from the River Valley team, didn’t even get to rest after making the 11-hour trip to get there. Campers went through a two-hour night session upon arrival that Sunday.
“I think it made him mentally tougher,” Central coach Jerod Benrud said. “You can see a difference in him after he went there.”
