By Ken Hansard
The Rose Hill Rockets collected a lot of hardware at the 2024 KSHSAA Class 4A State Championships, winning the overall team title and placing high in several weight classes. The team title was largely due to an individual state championship in the 106-pound weight class Samson Whitted, who was a junior at that time.
A senior now, Whitted aims to repeat his dominance of the division. Samson finished his junior season at 39-2, and he hopes to duplicate or surpass that excellence in his final high school campaign. He also expects similar results for the Rockets as a team, “I look forward to hopefully dominating as a team with pretty much the same lineup as last year.”
Whitted understands that his role as a senior is to provide stability and guidance for the younger Rocket wrestlers, but he also feels that he has an additional role to play each time he takes the mat, “My role as the 106 pounder is to start duals off right and get the momentum going.”
Whitted also realizes that, if he is to finish his season on top of the podium again, that he needs to be at the top of his game, “My focus is staying in top shape and repeating what I accomplished last year. The challenge is to be in good shape to go all three periods.
Regardless of what happens this season, Samson considers his tenure with the Rockets as time well spent, “I fell in love with wrestling at a young age, but coming to Rose Hill and meeting all my new friends here made things a lot more fun.”
