LeBlanc finishes as four-time All-American

MEEKER I The final tournament of the year didn’t end the way Joe LeBlanc or his teammates wanted, but in wrestling it’s hard to keep a good wrestler down. LeBlanc and five of his University of Wyoming teammates competed in the NCAA 2012 Division I Wrestling Championships in St. Louis, Mo., last weekend. They finished 19th as a team, with two earning All-American honors.
“The national tournament was not how we wanted to end, none of us performed to our potential and it hurts,” LeBlanc said. “But we’re not going to hang our heads for too long, we had a great season and are proud of what we built.”
The Wyoming Cowboys won the Western Wrestling Conference for a third year in a row, crowning four champions and qualifying six wrestlers for the NCAA national finals.
LeBlanc and junior Alfonso Hernandez (197) both earned All-American honors finishing seventh and sixth respectively. Fellow seniors Michael Martinez (125) and All-American Shane Onufer (165), along with freshman Zach Zehner (133) and junior Pat Martinez (174) qualified for the national tournament but did not place this year.
LeBlanc placed all four seasons at the NCAA Division I Championships, finishing fifth (2009), fourth (2010), sixth (2011) and seventh this season and is the only University of Wyoming wrestler to be a four-time All-American. LeBlanc was a four-time finalist and three-time WWC champion and he is the winningest wrestler — with 147 wins — in the university’s history.
“It’s hard to talk about, it has been an intense five years of my life but it’s time to turn the page,” LeBlanc said. “I wouldn’t change a thing but I’m looking forward too and excited to move on to the next chapter of my life with my wife and family.” LeBlanc and his wife Amanda have two boys, Tyson and Colby.
“They keep it all in perspective for me,” LeBlanc said of his family.
LeBlanc, one of three seniors on the Cowboy wrestling team, entered the national tournament as the No. 1 seed at 184 but his quest for a national championship ended with loss in the quarterfinals.
LeBlanc defeated Mike Larson of Missouri 9-4 in the first round, then defeated Erich Smith of Pennsylvania 11-3 before facing ninth seed Austin Trotman of Appalachian State in the quarterfinals. LeBlanc lost 9-12 to Trotman, who lost to Steve Bosak (the eventual champion) of Cornell in the semifinals in overtime and finished as the consolation champion.
After the loss to Trotman, LeBlanc would need to win one more match to earn All-American honors for a fourth time and he did, defeating Tony Dallago of Illinois 13-6 but then he lost to Kevin Steinhaus of Minnesota 6-9 to wrestle for seventh place, where his opponent, Josh Ihnen of Nebraska used a medical default.
LeBlanc will earn his degree in Kineseogly and Health Promotion, said he has a few credits towards a master’s so “I’m going to pursue that.”
LeBlanc was thankful to his coaches and plans to wrestle in one more tournament.
“Coach (Mark) Branch brought another level of competitiveness to the program, a four-time finalist and two-time Division I champion and on a championship team, he expected a lot and good things have happened,” LeBlanc said of his head coach. “I also want to thank assistant coaches Ethan Kyle and Travis Shufelt for being in the room wrestling with us everyday.”
LeBlanc cautioned this reporter about getting “too excited” when he said he was going to wrestle in the Olympic trials in Iowa City, Iowa, April 14.
“I’m going to take a couple of days off then give it a shot but don’t get to excited because Cael Sanderson (Olympic champion, the only four-time NCAA champion to go undefeated (159) and current head coach of two-time defending team champions Penn State) will be there, and Jake Herbert (world silver medalist, NCAA champion and 2009 Hodge winner) but since I’m in shape, I thought I’d try,” LeBlanc said.
LeBlanc also thanked his family and friends for their support and posted one of his favorite quotes from Teddy Roosevelt: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
~Teddy Roosevelt.
“We’ll see where the Lord takes us, I’m excited about the opportunities,” LeBlanc said.