At the 56th annual TOC, the Railers ended in 10th place with 101 points. With 30 teams in attendance they had 2 full days of wrestling, starting on Jan 11 at 9 a.m. and beginning finals around 6 p.m. on Jan. 12. The railers had two wrestlers make it to the finals, senior Wyatt Hendrickson and junior Grant Treaster. In preparation of the tournament the wrestlers went into it with one mindset.

“It’s just like any other tournament, except its home so people want to perform better, so it motivates the wrestlers a little bit more to practice harder,” Hendrickson said.

Before the final wrestling matches began the cheerleaders, railiners and drumline all had performances. The cheerleaders did lots of different stunts, dances and jumps in their routine. They started learning their routine before christmas break and then after they worked on it every night. Their hard work and lots of practice really helped the final performance.

“I feel like it was the best time we’ve done it,” junior Becca Meyer said. “like it went the best during it. We had a couple of mishaps like every performance does, but overall I think our team really enjoyed being able to perform and engage with the crowd and each other.”

After all of the different performances they introduced the wrestlers in the finals. Treaster wrestled in the 120 weight class and lost in a 2-3 decision, ending in second. Hendrickson wrestled in the 220 weight class and pinned his opponent in the second period.

“I felt great, everybody was yelling their butts off. It felt very exhilarating, like they cared, it was like Oh my Gosh! Newton actually cares about wrestling a little bit. Because usually at duals I see one or two students,” Hendrickson said. “It was different because I never had anyone chant for me when I win, so it kinda felt cool.”