By: Joanna Chadwick

After coaching for nearly 15 years, wrestling coach Kelly Heincker finally got his chance to coach for his hometown high school, the Derby Panthers. 

“Growing up in Derby, I got to watch my heroes wrestle and hear stories about local legends on the mat,” Heincker said. “Being immersed in the history of the program makes it very humbling being the head coach of a program that helped develop me in life.” 

Following in the footsteps of legendary coach Bill Ross, Heincker has kept up the hard-nosed wrestling that has been a staple in the Panthers’ program. 

“My coaching style centers around building meaningful relationships with our athletes and using those relationships to push them to maximize their potential,” Heincker said. 

Thanks to this coaching style, the Panthers not only maintained their winning tradition but also thrived, despite fielding a younger team compared to previous seasons. One thing will remain the same for the Derby program and that is their ability to develop talent and instill confidence in players, regardless of age or experience. 

“Our team focus this year has been to not focus on the results but rather how we train for those results,” Heincker said. “The kids have done a tremendous job of ignoring the doubters and preparing every day for the results they want.” 

Once again, the Panthers continued to improve as a great day at state led to a fifth-place team finish for the boys team and a sixth-place finish for the girls team. It was the 20th straight season that the boys finished in the top five.

The Panthers also had two state champions with junior Jayden Grivalja winning at 106 pounds, and senior Amara Ehsa won at 105 pounds for her third championship. 

“It was very emotional watching Jayden and Amara win state titles in back to back matches,” Heincker said. “Both of them sacrifice year-round for their goals. They stay after practice and are always finding ways to work harder than their competition. Many days it felt like they were competing to see which one would work the hardest.”