Powhatan High School senior Blake Kierson ended his four year career as an athlete at PHS on a high note. Wrestling in the 215 pound weight class he won his final match at the State Championships and earned a very respectable seventh place finish in the 69 team field.

Kierson has been with the wrestling program since its inception under coach Lee Richardson four years ago but got involved almost as an afterthought.

As a freshman lineman on the Indians’ football team, assistant coach Steve Pasi recommended the new wrestling program to Kierson as an off-season training program.

He tried the new sport and quickly became hooked.

“I really prefer it to football,” he confessed. “I like the one-on-one competition better. It’s really fun to go as hard as you can for six minutes and sometimes you can make your opponent bleed and you don’t get in trouble for it,” he smiled.

Kierson credits the sport with teaching him discipline and commitment. Wrestlers train and compete year-round and 5:30 a.m. Saturday weightlifting sessions are just a part of the training regimen.

“It takes a lot of discipline, but the hard work pays off and you learn to never give up,” he said. “And I had a coach that has kind of been like a second dad to me. Assistant Coach Mike Lane really taught me a lot about motivation,” he admitted.

But it is his own father, Gene, who has inspired his plans for the future. “Since I was a little kid I’ve idolized my dad,” he said. And it has been his dad’s involvement in stock car racing that will find Blake Kierson at the Catawba Community College next year. There he will attend classes at the Bobby Issac Motor Sports School

“I hope to one day be a crew chief for an upper level Sprint Series team,” he said. He already qualifies as a crew chief, albeit on a somewhat less prestigious level than the Joe Gibbs team he aspires to.

“I’ve been working on my dad’s race cars since I was five years old and am now his official crew chief.”

His mother Suzy, unquestionably his (and the wrestling team’s) biggest fan, noted that Blake also sets up the car for another local driver with skills he has learned “traveling around in the back of haulers since he was little.”

With “just under a 4.0 GPA” according to his mother, Blake exhibits the same tenacity in the classroom as on the wrestling mat.

“Wrestling requires that you give all of your time in order to be your best and while I do wish that we had had a program sooner, I believe I did all I could do,” he said.

His own personal words of wisdom reflect those accomplishments both on and off the mat. “Be relentless. Never give up.”