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In Oak Harbor, the premier sport is wrestling. This season, Alex Bergman looks like he could be Oak Harbor’s top wrestler.
Bergman is 26-4 with all of his losses coming against elite competition.
At major tournaments, he’s finished second (Perrysburg Invitational Tournament), third (Medina Invite) and seventh (Walsh Jesuit Ironman), respectively, and also won the Oak Harbor Invite, the season’s inaugural event.
Bergman is coming off a successful 2010-11 campaign, one that saw him finish sixth at state in Division II at 140 pounds.
“Getting sixth was good,” he said, “(but) I thought I maybe could’ve done better. Wrestling the two years before and not making it to state, making the next step was a relief. I knew I had to keep improving.”
This season, he is wrestling at 152 pounds. But it hasn’t proven to be much of a burden on the Oak Harbor senior.
“(It’s) not too bad,” he said of moving up two weight classes. “My weight has gone up and I’ve been lifting a lot, so it hasn’t been that bad.”
Bergman comes from a family lineage that has produced a number of great wrestlers, among them cousin J.D. Bergman, who was a two-time state champion (2002, ’03) and is currently in preparation for the 2012 London Olympic Games. Plus, he is the son of Oak Harbor coach George Bergman.
The Oak Harbor wrestling program, one of the state’s best, has produced a remarkable 21 state champions, most recently Tyler Hackworth, who won the 125-pound weight class last season, and has won five consecutive Sandusky Bay Conference championships.
In his 20th season, Coach George Bergman, who took the reigns from his brother, Joe, has overseen a program that has won the SBC, one of Ohio’s premier wrestling conferences, six times during his tenure. And the Rockets have fared well at the D-II state meet in recent years, finishing third, second, fifth, second, and third, respectively, in the last five seasons.
However, there has been a shift in gears for this year’s team, one that is quite inexperienced. In fact, Bergman is the lone senior on the 25-man team, 15 of whom are freshman. As a result, Bergman has been required to take on a significant leadership role.
“We’re depending a lot on him for leadership and he’s filled that role quite well,” said George Bergman, the head coach of the Rockets. “As his father and the coach, it’s interesting to see how much he’s matured on the team with all the guys we’ve had in the past. He’s always been one of the guys and now he’s expected to be the leader. He’s really stepped up and done a great job.”
Alex Bergman spoke of living up to the challenge.
“It’s difficult because all of these freshmen are looking at me,” he said. “It puts pressure on me, (but) it gives me confidence to make sure that I do everything right. It’s nice, but difficult.”
Following graduation from high school, Alex Bergman, who maintains a 3.7 grade-point average, will move to Newport, Rhode Island where he will enroll at the U.S. Naval Academy preparatory school before moving on to the Naval Academy.
Alex Bergman has been wrestling since he was a child and took part in tournaments throughout the Midwest growing up, all in the hope that it would lead to success on the wrestling mat, and thus far, it has. In his final year as a Rocket, he is hoping to make his mark, something that could result in placing even higher at the state meet this year.
One can only imagine how special it would be for George Bergman to see his son finish his senior year with another successful run.
In the long run, Alex Bergman is hoping that things will come together when the postseason rolls around. But he wouldn’t have it any other way.
“All that work in wrestling, (there’s) so much glory for it,” he said. “It’s all on you, whether you win or lose.”
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