Blue White Illustrated

Amanda August/The Daily Item UNDERHOOKED It's also exactly what SanderRetherford's parents moved Retherford (right), son looks for in his recruits. the family an hour north to a projected 141The gold medals certainly the town of Benton, meaning don't hurt, either. Zain would have to transfer pounder at PSU, When it's not the high from Line Mountain – where wrestles former school season, it's either he won a 103-pound PIAA teammate Seth freestyle or Greco-Roman title in 2010 – to Benton season in the Retherford High, a small rural school Lansberry in the household. He's always on known for producing Divi138-pound PIAA the go, training and competsion I wrestlers on a nearchampionship. ing. (In the off-season, he annual basis. It is now wrestles two or three times coached by former Penn a week and is in the weight room three State All-American Russ Hughes. The other nights.) Even when he's not on PIAA and District 4, however, ruled the mat or lifting weights, his thoughts that the transfer was "materially motiinevitably return to wrestling. "I usually vated for athletic reasons" and declared get one day a week off," he said. "But Retherford ineligible for the 2010-11 I'm still thinking about it. I'm always season. thinking about it. It's always on my At first, it was as if the floor – or mind." wrestling mat, if you will – had been That's why, when the sport was ripped out from underneath him. But taken from him, it hurt so bad. he didn't allow the ruling to hold him Prior to the start of his junior year, back. Instead, he used it as motivation. He spent his first season in Benton inside the practice room, serving as a resident workout partner/coach, and also trained freestyle and Greco-Roman, which paid off in the form of national and world titles. Then, when it was time to suit up in the black and orange for his senior season, he came full circle when he won the 2013 138-pound state championship against the most unlikely and ironic of opponents: Seth Lansberry, a former classmate and friend at Line Mountain. Retherford and Lansberry had wrestled against each other in the District 4 final and Northeastern Regional final in Williamsport, too. Retherford was victorious in all three bouts. "Once we got rolling into the postseason, we started going to places that I was pretty familiar with, places that I didn't get to wrestle at last year, like Williamsport and Hershey," Retherford

• Cover