By Mike Ippolito, Wilmington Town Crier

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa -- With the wrestling season at Bridgewater State University canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Fox Maxwell has found his career put on hold for the second time in less than a year, literally looking for a place to wrestle for the past several months.

Maxwell, a Wilmington resident who is currently a senior at BSU, found that place this past weekend, and boy, did he ever make the most of the opportunity.

Competing on Saturday at the 2021 USA Wrestling Folkstyle Nationals in Cedar Rapids Iowa, the former Wilmington High star took on some of the top high school wrestlers in the entire country and took home the 165-pound national title with a pair of clutch wins in the semi-finals and finals.

Maxwell, who was in the midst of a fine junior season back in March of 2020 when the pandemic caused the cancellation of that season, is no stranger to facing top notch competition. But the opposition he faced on his way to the national title may have been some of the toughest has ever faced in his career, as he had to get past an outstanding wrestler from Kansas in the semifinals before defeating a former Iowa state high school champion in the finals.

Maxwell had also faced some great competition in high school while at Wilmington High before transferring to Winchester High as a senior. He was a Middlesex League and Lowell Sun All-Star in both his sophomore and junior seasons, posting a combined record of 95-24 over the two seasons, including a 52-7 mark as a senior, while finishing third in the Division 3 State Tournament as a senior.

At Bridgwater State, Maxwell posted a 57-36 record over his first three years and earned All-Northeast Region honors competing out of the 165-pound weight class in both his sophomore and junior seasons.

The mere fact that Maxwell was in this national tournament at all was kind of a perfect storm of circumstances, or more precisely, kind of an imperfect storm. The college level tournament had disappeared from the Folkstyle Nationals over the past few years, but with the pandemic putting the seasons of so many schools across the country on hold, USA Wrestling, who runs the tournament, returned the level to the national stage once again this year.

Folkstyle wrestling’s basic rules include:

• To pin your opponent in Folkstyle, you must hold your opponent to their back for two seconds;
• During Folkstyle competition you can only lock your hands while trying to pin or trying to takedown your opponent, but not while riding... that is clasping and is illegal;
• An alternative way to end your match early would be Technical Superiority. To do so in Folkstyle-competition you must be beating your opponent by 15 points;
• You may lose a point for stalling or fleeing the mat during your match if the referee has already warned you for doing so.

Participating in this unique event was an opportunity Maxwell wasn’t about to let pass by.

“With our season being canceled at Bridgewater I really wanted to compete,” Maxwell said. “I had never been to this tournament before, but with everything else on hold, I took advantage of the opportunity and decided to compete.”

And compete he did. After getting a bye in the quarterfinals, Maxwell moved on to the semifinals where Joey Hancock of Leavenworth was awaiting. Hancock, who had won his quarterfinal match by a score of 6-2, appeared to be rolling right along in the tournament when he prepared to take on Maxwell, but that roll stopped pretty quickly when Maxwell pulled off a 4-2 victory that wasn’t as close as the score would indicate.

Maxwell went out to a quick 2-0 lead with a takedown near the end of the first period and extended it to 3-0 with an escape early in the second period. After picking up another point with another escape early in the third period Maxwell led 4-0 and essentially went into the wrestling version of the prevent defense, allowing a couple of late points due to a stalling penalty, before holding on for the 4-2 win.

“He was a tough, very talented kid,” Maxwell said. “I went into the match with my usual game plan to slow the pace down a little and to take advantage of my opponent’s mistakes and that’s what I was able to do. I got that takedown in the first period, and then I just didn’t make too many mistakes the rest of the way.”

If Hancock was tough, Maxwell’s opponent in the finals provided another step up in competition when he squared off against Wade Mitchell of Iowa. Mitchell, a former Iowa high school wrestling champion, and three-time state finalist is currently a sophomore at Division 1 University of Northern Iowa. He had also dominated in his way to the finals, having won his quarterfinal match with an 18-2 major decision, while taking a 17-10 decision in the semifinals.

Once again Maxwell was the momentum killer, jumping out to a 7-2 lead after two periods and then holding on for the win. Mitchell had actually jumped out to an early 2-0 lead with a takedown of Maxwell in the first period, but Maxwell came back to take a 3-2 lead by the end of the first and then dominated from there.

“I went in with the same type of game plan as the previous match. He got the first takedown, but I didn’t quit,” Maxwell said. “When it was 7-2 going into the third, I knew that even if he had taken me down he wouldn’t have been able to tie it up, so I just wanted to wrestle smart, and not get too excited about the possibility of winning such a big match. I just tried to stay focused.”

Maxwell maintained that focus throughout the match, and even after it ended. He did a few moments to celebrate with his girlfriend Jennifer Hughes, as well as his friend/coach for the weekend Brandon Williams, who had accompanied him on the trip. But the magnitude of what he had just done did not immediately hit him. But eventually, he was able to completely enjoy the accomplishment.

“It took a little while to settle in, because I treated it like any other tournament, but about thirty minutes later my phone just exploded with people texting me and one of my teammates texted me and told me how good the kid was I had just beaten,” Maxwell said. “That was when I realized the magnitude.”

After this big win, Maxwell is not exactly sure when he will wrestle again, but one thing he does know for sure is that he will once again be suiting up for Bridgewater State in the fall. While he is currently a senior, Maxwell will be back for a fifth season in with the Bears, taking advantage of the opportunity given to athletes by the NCAA after they were forced to miss their seasons.

And while the situation of missing an entire season and part of another might not be exactly perfect, Maxwell is grateful for the opportunity to return, just as he is grateful any time he is able to take to the mat for a match. In addition to being an outstanding wrestler, Maxwell is also quite the optimist, preferring to look at the bright side of his opportunity.

“I miss the regular routine of the season, but at the same time I believe in the saying that there is ‘opportunity in chaos,’” Maxwell said. “Because if we were having our normal regular season, I would not have been able to compete in this tournament. So, I am just looking at the extra year as a chance to further my career and achieve some more of my goals.”