Highland senior finishes wrestling season with third-place finish at state
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POCATELLO — Rustan Cordingley is a senior at Highland High School. This year, he led the Rams to a fifth-place finish at the 5A state wrestling tournament.
Cordingley began wrestling when he was just three years old. The sport, he explained, is a family tradition — his brothers, father and grandfather all wrestled.
“Wrestling for Highland was always a big dream of mine when I was a kid,” he said.
Cordingley’s father, Kolby, is the wrestling coach at Highland.
As a senior with around 15 years of experience — and as the coach’s son — Crodingley said before the state tournament in February that he took his role as a leader very seriously.
“The team is more important than the individual,” he said. “If we win a team state title, it would mean a lot more to me than an individual state title.”
Highland took fifth at the state tournament — behind state champ Meridian High School. Cordingley did better individually, finishing third in the 170-pound weight class.
While he wrestles at 170, Cordingley said that he normally tips the scales around 190 pounds during the offseason, and walks around between 172 and 174 pounds during the wrestling season.
He gave an outlook on a day in the life of a high school wrestler.
Matchday begins around 7:30 a.m. with a weigh-in. If his weight is right, he will have a glass of water to “get going” for school.
Cordingley checks his weight again at lunch. If his weight is still where it needs to be, he will eat and drink “a little bit” before checking out of school and loading into the bus.
The bus ride to the tournament usually finds Cordingley and his teammates asleep until it arrives at the match’s host school — “we’re usually thirsty and hungry,” he said. The official weigh-in is at 5:30 p.m.
After that, it’s warm-up “then it’s go time,” he said.
Asked if he thinks the strict wrestlers’ diet affects him in other facets of life, most notably school, Cordingley said he does not believe so.
“Not really,” he said. “If you’re getting the right fuel in you, you’re good — if you’re eating the right stuff, it makes a difference in how you feel.”
Cordingley will graduate this spring. After graduation, he plans on serving a Latter-day Saint mission before enrolling at Idaho State University. He has not yet determined what major he will pursue there but does not expect to pursue wrestling beyond high school.
When his time at Highland is done, Cordingley said he will miss the people most.
“All my friends went here,” he said. It’s been a real good team to be a part of.”