Portage junior all business in winning second state title

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Without question, Sean McMurray was excited to win his second straight state title.

But there was no running to and fro; no shouts of "Giants beat the Patriots, Giants beat the Patriots!"; no tears of joy.

Instead, there was a relatively simple celebration of thrusting two fingers into the air, a quiet sense of satisfaction about accomplishing a goal he had expected to accomplish.

"It felt like a job this year," said the Portage junior 152-pounder McMurray, the 2009 Post-Tribune Wrestler of the Year. "I felt like I didn't have a choice. There wasn't as much happiness or shock; I had to get it done.

"I talked to my coaches a bunch, and everyone I talked to said one match at a time. Nothing matters but the next match. You win your next match, you're still undefeated. We were working hard. There was pressure, but we kind of liked that. We just wanted to set the tone and wrestle our match. We just wanted to get at them and win every match."

Indeed, McMurray capped a 49-0 season with an 8-5 victory over Anthony Quiroz in the state championship match at Conseco Fieldhouse, his sixth victory of the season over the Chesterton freshman and fourth in as many weekends in a final.

Last season, McMurray upset then-Hobart senior Eric Galka 4-3 for the 135-pound title, after losing to the two-time state champion and now-Northwestern freshman 7-4 in a semistate semifinal; he finished 33-4, with his only other three losses coming to then-Valparaiso senior and now-Purdue freshman Tom Churchard, last season's 130-pound state champion.

"It was a pretty dominating year," Portage coach Pat Wilkins said. "The last two years, he wasn't undefeated (McMurray placed seventh in the state at 112 as a freshman, finishing with a 35-8 record), so being undefeated is a nice touch.

"Last year, it was kind of exciting to be in the final, he was hyped up. We had to convince him he could win. And when he won, he was running around, hugging everybody. This year, he had more of a job to do. He kind of expected to be in the final. He worked hard to get there, but there was an expectation."

McMurray actually hurt his left shoulder at the Duneland Conference meet, wearing a brace for the rest of the season and doing therapy. He planned to visit a doctor this week.

"It was painful, but once you get on the mat, it's a blur," he said. "It didn't affect me very much."

Next season, McMurray will try to became Indiana's 24th three-time state champion. He could wrestle at 160 pounds or even 171.

"I'm going to eat a lot of protein and lift a lot of weights this summer, like I did last summer, and we'll see," said McMurray, who has received college interest from Big Ten schools, as well as such schools as Old Dominion, Iowa State and Stanford. "Whatever I weigh, I weigh."

For now, he was enjoying his latest state title as much as possible.

"There was a target on my back, and it's bigger now," McMurray said. "It's all mental. I'd have to say our confidence was sky-high, because I had to win every match. A lot of guys tried to slow things down against me, but I had to keep the tempo up. I worked harder than that guy out there, so I couldn't let them beat me.

"It was just a really good season. My team really got together, we had really good chemistry. We were building off everybody to make themselves and the team better. I?was put in a perfect situation to be successful. I can't thank my teammates and the coaches enough, because they worked their butts off to win me a state title."

Contact Michael Osipoff at 648-3137 or mosipoff@post-trib.com