The Fair Grove Wrestling Team competed at districts in Buffalo, Missouri, and Butler, Missouri, on February 13, 14, 20, and 21, 2026.
The boys team competed on February 20 and 21, 2026, at Butler High School. Samuel Simpson (11) placed second in his weight class allowing him to qualify for state.
The high school girls wrestling team competed on February 13 and 14, 2026, at Buffalo High School. Wrestler Maggie Johnson (9) said, “The district meet for the girls team went great! Everyone was hyped and ready to compete.”
Over the wrestling season, the team has competed many times. Head Wrestling Coach Chris Holt stated, “Both teams have competed in seven tournaments and about 10 duals/tris/quads.” Tournaments consist of many schools competing against each other while duals are meets with only two schools competing. The same is for tris and quads except there are three or four schools.
All of the meets have been building up for districts. Assistant Wrestling Coach Natalie Palomo said, “We’ve been practicing daily and wrestling hard, having regular meets and pushing to work on strong fundamentals and increased technique and skills.”
District meets tend to be very stressful for athletes. Going into the district meets Holt combated this stress stating, “I want the team to go out, have fun, wrestle hard, and do the best they can.”
The 2026 season is the second season ever of Fair Grove Wrestling. Holt said, “As a team, we have not won any tournaments. We did have a few girls place first at the conference tournament and the Last Chance tournament.”
The wrestling team has been practicing for months. The season started in late November and has now reached the end of the regular season. Each week there were practices after school Monday through Friday excluding days with meets. Johnson said, “Our coaches made sure we had all the practice we needed for certain situations and helped as much as possible.”
Practices consisted of building all skills wrestlers need. Holt explained, “At practice we focused on the basics, making sure that the wrestlers are in shape physically and mentally.”
The district meets mark the end of the regular wrestling season. The team has made many memories throughout it. Wrestler Elliot Schlak (10) said, “My favorite memory this year is doing monkey rolls at the end of practice with Jaden and Wyatt to see how hard we can push each other.”
Simpson competed at the state wrestling meet on February 25, becoming the second wrestler from Fair Grove to make it to the state tournament.
