Rockford Warriors look to build on state-placing success

By John Burbridge sports@charlescitypress.com

ROCKFORD — After an extended season of making weight, there was no way Rockford’s state-placing wrestlers Will Portis and Dakota Vance were going to miss a banquet.

Even the destructive storm front that ravaged the region on May 17 couldn’t keep them away.

That day, Rockford was scheduled to hold its annual sports awards banquet. When the storm came and momentarily knocked out power a half hour before the start of the event, the banquet was called off.

But only formally.

Portis and Vance and a handful of other early-arriving Warrior athletes due to be honored stuck around to help not put to waste a now abundance of food. After all, they weren’t going anywhere soon with the storm still raging outside and several downed power lines blocking passages back home.

Portis and Vance have since left the Rockford program as graduating seniors. During the 2017 State Wrestling Championships, both emerged as award stand placers and, thus, took part in the Grand March on the floor of Wells Fargo Arena before the championship matches.

For Portis, it was his third-straight award stand appearance. As a sophomore and junior, he respectively placed fifth and seventh in the Class 1A 106-pound bracket before moving up to 120 pounds this past season which ended with a fourth-place showing at state.

For 170-pounder Vance, he placed eighth in his bracket after having to give up a medical forfeit in the seventh-place match.

“We’ve had state placers before,” Rockford wrestling coach Justin Heimer said, “but to have two state placers is unusual for a small school like us.

“We’re going to miss them, but I think they set a good example for our wrestlers coming back where we can build on their accomplishments.”

If you want to know Portis’s record, you’re going to have to find that out yourself because he’s not into keeping his own stats.

“I lose track of those things,” said Portis, who was 49-5 this high school season and had 48 prep wins last season.

Portis plans to wrestle in college.

“But I’m still looking for a school right now,” he said.

For Vance, this was his first and only year at Rockford.

“It was awesome,” said Vance, who recorded a school-record 27 pins out of his 39 victories as a Warrior.

“They have some of the best wrestlers around here, and they made me feel welcome,” Vance said.

Vance also plans to wrestle in college, but he also wants to expand from the grappling discipline and get into mixed martial arts — like his father Chad Vance who had a winning record as a pro MMA fighter.

“The best advice I can give him is to train very hard,” said the elder Vance, whose son used to lead his fight-training entourage during introductions on the way to the cage before his pro bouts.

“And you’ve got to be careful with some of the people in the business,” Chad Vance said. “They’ll throw you out there when you’re not ready just to build up someone’s record.”