Cohenn Stark is ready to competitively throw again – a javelin, not people.
The Northwest High junior didn’t get a chance to wrestle this season because of an injury he sustained playing quarterback for the school’s football team last November. The Lions competed in the Class 4 District 1 wrestling meet at Lafayette High in Wildwood on Feb. 20-21, and four qualified for the state championships Friday and Saturday in Columbia.
A state qualifier at 165 pounds in 2025, Stark watched his teammates from the sidelines.
“It’s tough to not be out there, but I almost get more nervous watching my buddies compete,” he said. “The nerves last the whole match watching someone else, but once you’re out there wrestling, they go away.”
Stark liked what he saw out of his teammates at districts.
“Young wrestlers are beating people they’re not supposed to, and the others are doing exactly what they’re expected to do,” he said.
Stark was in the process of turning in one of the finest seasons on the gridiron ever seen in Cedar Hill when the Lions headed south to Jackson High for the Class 6 District 1 championship. The Indians welcome visitors into what they proudly refer to as “The Pit,” more often than not grinding the visitors into a mosh pit. Before halftime of Jackson’s 70-7 thrashing of the Lions, Stark called a routine QB run and when the play ended, his season did too.
“It was a basic quarterback run and my O-lineman got hit back into me and messed up my shoulder,” Stark said. “I thought it was a stinger. It was a fluke thing you wouldn’t think would be so severe, but weird things happen.”
That’s quite the measured response from someone so young and with such a bright future as a student-athlete. And he’s as highly regarded as a person as he is sought after as an athlete by his coaches and peers. Stark rushed and passed for a combined 2,811 yards, passed for 12 TDs and rushed for 24 more to lead NW to a record of 8-3 and the first district final in the current playoff format.
This spring Stark will attempt to break his own school record in the javelin, which he set last year at 53.88 meters. Stark finished sixth in the state in Class 5 in the javelin with a throw of 51.36 meters. His goal this year is to keep rebreaking his school record and reach 55 meters, which would place him in the ballpark of the winning throws in his class last spring,
“I didn’t feel 100 percent comfortable to come back to wrestling and be at the best of my ability, so I just started to focus on javelin,” Stark said.
Stark is just one of the all-state caliber track and field athletes about to be turned loose when spring practice begins Monday. But that’s for another day. The icing on the cake of the wrestling and basketball seasons is about to be spread across the state. The Leader will have you covered for state wrestling this week, and will also be keeping an eye on the boys and girls basketball district tournaments.