{"id":175353,"date":"2024-02-01T04:36:06","date_gmt":"2024-02-01T09:36:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=175353"},"modified":"2024-02-01T04:36:07","modified_gmt":"2024-02-01T09:36:07","slug":"collins-returns-to-lead-cougar-wrestlers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2024\/02\/01\/collins-returns-to-lead-cougar-wrestlers\/","title":{"rendered":"Collins returns to lead Cougar wrestlers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SCOTT TRUXELL\/<\/strong>independent editor<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ben Collins has been synonymous with Van Wert wrestling for a number of years and now he\u2019s back in the saddle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collins, who finished as the 1999 145-pound state runner up as a senior at Van Wert High School, worked as an assistant wrestling coach at the school for several years after graduating from college, then spent 10 seasons as head coach. He stepped down after the 2020-2021 season, but served as a volunteer coach for two seasons under former coach Mimmo Lytle before resuming head coaching duties this past fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His reason for stepping away two years ago was a rather simple one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Ben Collins keeps a watchful eye on his wrestlers during practice. Scott Truxell\/Van Wert independent<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy oldest son (Caden) is a freshman now, he\u2019s a basketball guy and he played middle school basketball so to be a good dad I needed to give up something, so I gave up wrestling,\u201d Collins explained. \u201cOn the flip side I couldn\u2019t be a good coach missing league meets and those sorts of things to watch him compete. He\u2019s in the high school now, there\u2019s not as many Thursday games so it worked out so I could get back in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, Caden suffered a shoulder injury during football season and isn\u2019t able to play basketball this season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe\u2019s still in a sling but he\u2019s put a lot of time into that sport and I needed to be a good dad before I was a good coach,\u201d Collins said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wrestling runs in the Collins family. The coach\u2019s youngest son, Grayson, is a sixth grade wrestler and Ben\u2019s father, Mark Collins, was the head wrestling coach at Lincolnview High School from the 1979-80 season until 1996-97 season when he became an assistant at Van Wert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWrestling\u2019s always been a part of my livelihood,\u201d Collins said. \u201cThe last two years I was in a volunteer role and did our biddy program. The last two years were hard \u2013 my time away was enjoyable because I got to watch my son play basketball but the opportunity presented itself to come back. I talked with my wife (Tracy), Mr. Bagley and Miss Dunlap and they all gave me their blessing so here we are.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The Cougars have fared well this season. The team is above .500 in dual matches, numbers are up and the Cougars are able to go two-deep at most of the weight classes, which is becoming a rarity in high school wrestling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe key thing about this group is the senior class which has six kids now,\u201d Collins stated. \u201cIt was 12 kids at the beginning of the season but most of those kids were in the first year when we started amping up our youth program, back when they were first graders. They\u2019re the first group that has been all the way through everything with us at Van Wert. I\u2019ve been watching the underclassmen too, so we knew there was a good nucleus and core here to have a really good season and they\u2019ve worked their tails off and earned it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis past Saturday we were at Ben Logan (Raider Invitational) and we finished third out of 18 teams,\u201d he continued. \u201cWe got beat by Cincinnati Archbishop Moeller which is a big Division I powerhouse. They have eight state ranked guys and Ben Logan is a real solid team in Division II. Those are the two teams we lost to and we had 11 guys wrestle and six placers so we have a bunch of talent on this team that can produce at tournaments.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The regular season is starting to wind down and in this rapidly moving season, the WBL championships and sectional tournaments aren\u2019t too far off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have three more league matches coming up and if we can handle our business like we\u2019re supposed to, we should be tied for second going into the league tournament,\u201d Collins said. \u201cIf things go our way we could end up sharing the title or be runners-up which would be good.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Cougars will host Shawnee in a WBL dual-match at 6 p.m. tonight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCOTT TRUXELL\/independent editor Ben Collins has been synonymous with Van Wert wrestling for a number of years and now he\u2019s back in the saddle. Collins, who finished as the 1999 145-pound state runner up as a senior at Van Wert High School, worked as an assistant wrestling coach at the school for several years after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-175353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-06 00:54:56","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175353"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":175356,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175353\/revisions\/175356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}