Lilly Brown
Maddoxx Jones (11) pins down a Howell Wrestler at districts.
The season goal of every wrestler is to get to state and hopefully get as far as they can. This year the boys wrestling program had three athletes qualify: Mason Huebner (12), Paxton Hughes (11), and Maddoxx Jones (11).
The 2025 wrestling state competition was held on Friday, Feb. 28 through Saturday, March 1 at Mizzou Arena.
Hughes is a junior who went to state for wrestling and competed in the 157 weight class.
Jones is also a junior who went to state for wrestling and computed in the 175 weight class.
Hubener is a senior who is in the 190 weight class and has been wrestling since his freshman year. This is his first time going to state.
It takes a lot of work to make it to state and it shows. Hubener says that his starting weight freshman year was 145 lbs. and he wasn’t that good. So he decided he was going to go to work really hard to get better.
“I started going to the gym for three hours a day every day and made a good meal plan and eventually I got up to 215,” Huebner said.
However, that is not all he did to get better. He would stay after practice and do drills to better himself and sometimes with coaches for like an hour.
“I would wake up at 3:45 in the morning and run before school. I went to every off season practice and went to a couple camps. I watched wrestling videos constantly to try and pick up technique.” This just shows how much hard work and dedication he had and how much better he wanted to get.
Huebner was pretty happy he made it to state because of all of his hard work and dedication. He list his third match in the third period
“I didn’t compete the greatest and I didn’t end up placing.”
Just because he didn’t do the best and didn’t place, doesn’t mean it isn’t a great accomplishment making it to state. Not many people get to say they made it to state in high school. State is extremely difficult because it is the best wrestlers in the state so the competition is upped.
“There is no way I ever would have accomplished what I did without our amazing coaches,” Huebner said. “I drilled with coach Haynes pretty much everyday and am so grateful that we have such a welcoming caring coaching staff.”
