He started the season in pain, but finished it on the podium.
Kentlake’s Sean Cavanagh has endured a gauntlet of emotions this winter, the last of which was joy on Saturday night at the Tacoma Dome, when he accepted a medal for taking sixth place at Mat Classic XXII.
Cavanagh, a 145-pounder, won three of six matches on Friday and Saturday combined en route to bringing home the program’s lone medal of the tournament.
“It was pretty important (to place),” admitted Cavanagh, who finished the season with a 16-6 record. “It’s what all those years of hard work and what you put in … it makes it all better. There are some guys on the team who didn’t make it here and I was wrestling for them, too. I know how much they wanted it.”
Cavanagh, a senior, was making his first-and-last trip to the state tournament. A couple months ago, the Kentlake wrestler wasn’t even certain that he’d be able to compete at the sub-district tournament, much less state.
The doubt stemmed from an eye injury Cavanagh suffered in his first match of the season. In that match, a Thomas Jefferson opponent landed hard on Cavanagh’s right cheek bone, fracturing his eye socket.
“We didn’t even know if he’d be back,” said Kentlake coach Jeremy Williams.
The pain from the injury was immense, Cavanagh said.
“His hip bone hit my eye (socket). The pressure from that cracked the floor of my eye socket and bruised the orbital,” Cavanagh explained. “I ended up winning, but the entire right side of my face was numb and I felt like passing out from the pain.”
Cavanagh didn’t pass out. Instead, the Kentlake wrestler pushed on. He returned to the mat on January 12, put in the necessary number of matches to qualify for the sub-district tournament and took aim on a state berth.
The strong finish made it worth it for Cavanagh, who admitted feeling a bit nervous on Friday under the bright Tacoma Dome lights.
“I felt pretty small in a room with 100s of thousands of wrestlers who are here, but I was up to the challenge and wanted to make my family proud,” Cavanagh said. “I just wanted to make memories.”
The last of which proved to be a memory of success.
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