Last year, the wrestling team saw then-junior 285-pounder Jake Evans winning Waynesburg University its first ever national championship.

Fast-forward 52 weeks later, and the same feat could not be replicated in 2019.

Evans and fellow grappler Ken Burrs (197 pounds) qualified for nationals, but Waynesburg came away empty-handed in its quest to match last year’s success.

“It’s disappointing, of course,” said head coach Ron Headlee. “We had big expectations and it was just one of those tournaments. Sometimes things go your way and sometimes they don’t.”

Evans was seeded as the No. 3 wrestler in the heavyweight bracket and mowed his way through Wheaton’s Grant Miller 8-0 to advance to the quarterfinals. That was when Otterbein’s Drew Kasper got the 12-11 upset over Evans to dethrone the heavy favorite.

“The style was a bit tougher,” Headlee said. “I didn’t agree with the referee on the stalling call and I knew that that was going to make a difference. [Evans] got his escape, then [Kasper] got his escape, and Evans got called for stalling.”

Following his record-breaking 175th win in the PAC Championships, Evans said winning nationals was his ultimate goal. After being knocked off by Kasper in the quarterfinals, Evans went up to Headlee after his match and apologized for his performance.

“That’s just the type of kid [Evans] is,” said Headlee. “It’s just bittersweet because he puts a lot of time into [wrestling]. Nobody is going to take his accomplishments away from him. He was a national champion, his sights were set higher, and even though he didn’t accomplish what he set out to do, he did a lot of great things here.”

His counterpart, Burrs, had a much different road to the national tournament. In January, he broke his hand and was out for the remainder of the Presidents’ Athletic Conference schedule. He wrestled his first match of the 2019 calendar year in regionals and rolled to the title bout before he defaulted out of the championship contest to advance to the national tournament.

“It was going to be tough with his hand injury,” Headlee said. “He had to face the second seed, pulled one out where he got a takedown lead, but the kid was just a little bit better than Burrs was that day…you can’t completely believe in yourself with an injury like he had. He had a short time coming back and I think not believing in himself hurt him.”

Despite the bittersweet end, the wrestling team concluded another successful campaign in which it won the PAC Championship for the third consecutive year. They will have to replace three seniors, including Matt Claxton, Nick Kusich and the NCAA’s all-time wins leader Jake Evans.

Given the amount of injuries the team dealt with throughout the season, Headlee is optimistic that next year will bring greater fortune in that aspect and lead to more continued success.

“We have a bunch of young guys coming back, including a few that were close to making it last year,” Headlee said. “We had a lot of injuries this year, and hopefully we can overcome that and send some more wrestlers to the national tournament.”