Jake Evans stood under the lights of the Cleveland Public Auditorium waiting for the final bout of the weekend. It was the second consecutive year Evans made it to the national tournament, but this time, things were different.

The match was for the heavyweight national title and was the farthest Evans had ever made it in his wrestling career, and he knew it.

“This was the biggest one,” Evans said. “This was the one that counted.”

The two heavyweights took the stage. Evans paced impatiently. His competitor, James Bethel from SUNY Oneonta, adjusted his shoes.

Then they shook hands, got into stance and Evans had seven minutes to prove he was a national champion.

 

***

 

The path to the final bout wasn’t simple for Evans.

As a freshman, Evans’ aspirations went only as far as being able to compete at the collegiate level.

When head coach Ron Headlee first recruited Evans, he didn’t see a national caliber athlete in Evans. It was his persistent work ethic that began to change opinions within the coaching staff.

“When he first stepped on campus I wouldn’t say, ‘hey I think this is a potential national champion,’” Headlee said. “He’s just changed our heads and really kept working at it.”

After getting within one match from making nationals in the regional tournament his freshman year, Evans ended the season wanting more.

Two years later, as a junior, Evans entered nationals with anxiousness. More prepared than he had ever been before, finishing in the top three was the original goal set for Evans.

Coming in as the fifth seed at 285 pounds, he wasn’t a tournament favorite. Regardless, Headlee knew Evans’ talent—it wasn’t about the placements on paper, it was about the results on the mat.

“We could have been upset and thought he could have been seeded higher,” Headlee said. “But I kind of liked where he was seeded.”

As the bouts came and went for Evans, Headlee saw each one present a new opportunity for failure that had to be conquered. In the quarterfinal, Isaiah Bellamy from Wesleyan University brought the challenge of being the fall leader in the country.

“Each [match] was like a different challenge for [Evans], with a different type of wrestler,” Headlee said.

Evans would go on to secure a third-period takedown against Bellamy, which brought him to the semifinals.

While the coaches watched anxiously from the sidelines, Evans took on each opponent with anticipation.

“I think it was actually good that [the matches] were close,” he said. “It kept me more focused… I’m sure it made the coaches and everybody else nervous.”

As the stakes got higher for Evans, his demeanor shifted. The semifinal match was the farthest Evans had ever been in the national tournament, and he couldn’t find his focus.

 

 

***

 

Before Evans was the No. 1 seed in the tournament and a memorable opponent – Lance Evans from Wartburg College

A year ago, Lance pinned Jake Evans at nationals, leading to a seventh-place finish. The rematch held more weight this time, though, with a berth to the championship round in contention.

“I had like a weird feeling before the [semifinal] match,” Jake Evans said. “I couldn’t get hyped up.”

One of the assistant coaches resorted to boxing Evans on the head and on the chest, the sting from the blows finally broke Evans into an emotionless focus.

That concentration was enough to carry Jake Evans through the No. 1 seed in the tournament with an 8-6 victory. Even that contest, however, was too close than the coaches would have liked.

Lance Evans ended the match with a seemingly buzzer-beating takedown which would have sent the match into overtime. But the officiating overturned the takedown and Jake Evans advanced.

After securing the upset, Headlee said he fully realized just how close Jake Evans was to becoming the first D-III National Champion in program history.

“After the semis, I thought he had a shot at it,” Headlee said.

With his destination locked in, Evans began to feel the familiar feeling of pressure sink in.

Having to wait half the day before the championship match was scheduled to begin, Evans said he tried to take his mind off the inevitable – a match that determined who was the nation’s best.

Evans tried to sleep, but he couldn’t nap with the sounds of the other weight class championships in the background. He knew he would inevitably be called to the mat like the others before him.

As Evans’ time ticked down to the final minutes before the championship match, he said his coaches offered final words of advice before he took the stage.

From Headlee’s perspective, it was the upper body throws that defined Bethel’s style; Evans needed to stick to the leg attacks that defined his style.

Taking the main stage moments before the start match, Evans felt what was on the line in the biggest match of his life.

“If I lost – it would have been the worst feeling ever,” Evans said. “There was definitely some pressure there.”

 

***

 

After getting a quick takedown on Bethel in the opening period of the championship bout, Evans held on to an early 2-0 lead, but it wouldn’t last.

With a pair of escapes, a takedown and a stall called on Evans, Bethel carried a 5-2 lead into the final moments of the second period. With time expiring quickly before the start of the final round, doubt began to creep into the minds of Headlee and Evans.

“In the first period of the finals, I started doubting again,” Headlee said. “But then [it changed to] disbelief, it looked like it might be a hard style for [Evans to face].”

As Bethel controlled the pacing through the majority of the opening period, Evans too, wondered if his journey would end prematurely.

In the final seconds of the second period, Evans scored a critical takedown on Bethel when Evans drew him off balance by grabbing his left leg to bring him down. Evans entered the final round down by only one point, 5-4.

With two minutes remaining before a national champion was named, Headlee felt the dynamic between the two heavyweights shift.

“I thought in the third period I could tell [Bethel] was starting to get tired,” Headlee said. “I felt pretty confident [with Evans] down by one point. Not many guys can withstand his takedown defense when it gets to the third period.”

With just more than a minute left in the final period, Evans began to set Bethel up for a double-leg takedown, a routine maneuver for Evans.

“I set him up by clubbing at his head and pushing and pulling,” Evans said. “I think [Bethel] might have reached for my shoulder, and I chopped his arm off and gave him a couple clubs and went for it.”

When Bethel reached for Evans’ shoulders, Evans did what he had done to countless opponents before, he lunged forward, seized Bethel’s legs, threw him to the mat and secured a 6-5 lead, which extended to a 10-5 advantage with a four-point near fall right after.

In the final moments, as Evans held Bethel to the mat, all he could hear through his headpiece was the voice of assistant coach Gennaro Bonaventura.

“I couldn’t hear anything but [Bonaventura] screaming until he lost his voice,” Evans said. “I just heard him screaming for like 40 seconds.”

“Hold him down,” Bonaventura screamed repeatedly. “Stay right there.”

Time expired and Evans clinched the 10-5 victory over Bethel.

Countless times before, Evans has risen from the mat victorious following a similar takedown. This time, Evans stood as a national champion.

 

***

 

In the week following the historic championship match, Evans still hasn’t fully grasped the feeling of being a national champion, setting school history or becoming a defining moment of Headlee’s coaching career.

“It’s just all surreal; it hasn’t set in,” Evans said.

As Waynesburg University adjusts to having the first D-III national champion in school history,

Evans said he questioned, at first, if he wanted to return to the mat for a final year.

“I kind of [wondered] immediately afterwards if I should come back again,” Evans said. “Now that I’ve had time to think about it, I think I’ll come back and try and win again. Maybe be more dominate this time; I still think I have areas that I can improve on.”

From Headlee’s perspective, Evans has everything it takes to be a repeat national champion, go undefeated and reach 200 wins in the program.

Evans is starting to agree with them.

“I’m probably going to come back,” Evans said. “I still feel hunger for it.”