The Grind, presented by Bank of Clarendon: Lakewood's Rogers looks to make run to wrestling state title

As a freshman, Dave Rogers burst onto the scene at Lakewood in both football and wrestling. By the end of his first season, he was starting on the football team and quickly became the Gators' top heavyweight. At the end of the year, the young standout was one of five Gators to take part in the SCHSL 3A state championship.

A year later, Dave fell short of his goal of returning to state, which lit a fire in the stomach of the Lakewood heavyweight. As a junior making the jump up to 4A, Dave will have some stiff competition, as he shares a region with a two-time state champion in Hartsville's Jackson Chavis. He's ready for the challenge as he makes a push to bring Lakewood wrestling to the next level.

"I'm coming for No. 1," he said simply.

RAW BUT READY TO LEARN

Lakewood head coach Nate O'Connor was an assistant with both the football and wrestling teams when Dave joined the Gators as a freshman. He knew Lakewood was getting something special in the massive lineman.

"Immediately we knew that he was going to be a freshman starter on varsity, but we also knew that he wasn't developed enough yet," Nate said. "Our plan was to really build him up as much as we could in the weight room over the summer and then work them out as hard as possible, see if he could learn the plays, which he did very well."

Throughout football season, Nate was in Dave's ear about joining the wrestling team, though he didn't need a ton of convincing.

"He came out first week, first day of practice, and he fell in love with it," Nate said.

That passion was evident from the jump. He quickly became Lakewood's top heavyweight, which only pushed Dave to want to improve.

"I just wanted to help my team and I wanted to be great, so I just worked, worked, worked," Dave said. "I wasn't expecting to beat the starting heavyweight, but then it happened."

After earning the starting job, Dave got humbled with a loss in his first match, but that only sparked a larger flame.

"I was like, 'Man, I want to be better,'" he said. "Then I started working."

EARLY INFLUENCE

Dave had the benefit of joining a somewhat veteran squad as a freshman. Dwayne Wilson and DiVon Woods helped set the bar for Dave early on.

"They showed me the ropes," Dave said. "They showed me tips and tricks I never knew.

"(They taught me) No matter how it looks, keep moving forward, keep pushing."

Nate said that veteran leadership was crucial to the team as a whole. The key to prolonged success in wrestling is having athletes who can lead by example.

"That's a huge deal, and you see that a lot with wrestling teams all over the state," Nate said of veteran leadership. "The teams that have returning state qualifiers, they're multiplying more state qualifiers because their state qualifiers are in the wrestling room every day with the people that are not state qualifiers. They're drilling, they're rolling around, getting better.

"That's the great thing about wrestling is whenever you're rolling around drilling with somebody, if you know they don't know a move, you can kind of teach them."

FIRST TRIP TO STATE

Dave earned his first trip to state after finishing fourth in the lower state meet as a freshman. He narrowly pulled out a 2-1 win over Hanahan's Jeffery Vazquez to qualify.

"We were getting on the mat, and I could tell he was tired, and I was tired myself," he said. "I was being lazy, but I heard some of my guys saying, 'You want it, ain't you? You were telling me how you want to go D1, this and that.' That just lit a spark in me, and I got an underhook and a grenade through to the single leg, and he just rolled over after that."

When Dave walked into the state meet at Anderson for the first time, it was overwhelming. Luckily, he was joined by four other Gators, Wilson, Woods, Josiah Dinkins and Ja'Nyla Myers.

"Seeing all those people (who) were good enough to make it to state, surprised I was good enough to make it to state," he said. "I was just like, 'Oh my God, I'm in the big leagues now. I'm here.'"

Dave immediately ran into some tough competition and ultimately fell short of the podium. His first match came against the eventual state runner-up, Woodruff's Davis Stubbs. Dave held an early 1-0 lead but was caught and pinned to move to the consolation bracket. After a quick pin, he ran into a familiar face, region foe and pre-tournament favorite Andre McFadden of Lake City. After losing to McFadden during the regular season, he got in his own head at state.

"Don't let the nerves get to you," Dave said of his lessons from state. "Each match, I was just nervous. I get nervous now, but it's not overwhelming; I just have to do my part. If I'm losing, I still have to do my part."

DRIVEN TO IMPROVE

After falling short of the podium, Dave's only goal was to get back to state.

"I went ghost. I cut off my social media. I was just working," Dave said. "I just wanted to get back because I knew I could do something."

As a sophomore, there was a world of moving pieces around the young standout. Both the football and wrestling programs underwent coaching changes. In football, Larry Cornelius left for East Clarendon, while Willie Offord took the reins of the program. In wrestling, Josh Williams left and Jay'Son Leach took over. Leach stayed for one year before O'Connor returned to the program, this time as the head coach.

"It was a little overwhelming," Dave said of the shifting landscape in both sports. "It wasn't too much; I just had to adjust to his coaching and adjust my work ethic to him so he could understand me and I could understand him.

"I just had to make sure to hang around the right people, eat the right things, keep my mind clear and focus on one thing."

FALLING SHORT

Dave made it back to the lower state championship but ran into a familiar foe. After two quick pins to open the tournament, Dave faced off with McFadden yet again. He was pinned in the second period and couldn't recover in the consolation bracket, falling to Ja'Landyn Dozier from Loris.

"There was one dude, he was good. I couldn't get one over on him," Dave said. (I was) Not thinking; I was just being irrational. I was trying to do whatever I could to win. I wasn't really thinking.

"That's why I'm pushing now because I couldn't get one over on him. It stuck; it hurts."

Dave was overwhelmed by competing emotions after the loss, but they all merged into one result: hunger for revenge.

"I was sad, but I was so mad," he said. "Later that night, I just ran. I jogged for a little bit. I couldn't sit down, couldn't go to sleep. It was heartbreaking, but it was aggravating at the same time."

Nate sees that hunger in Dave every day.

"Dave is always at practice; he's always ready to go," Nate said. "A lot of times Dave is walking in the room as everybody's getting their shoes on, but Dave was already covered in sweat because he's been working out for 20 minutes."

The biggest barrier Dave faced in his first two seasons was confidence. As a junior, his top goal is finding that self-belief.

"I feel like it all comes together because you have confidence in yourself, your teammates have confidence in you that you're going to get this win, and your coaches for sure know you're going to get this win."

CHALLENGE OF A HEAVYWEIGHT

December is the toughest month for every wrestler but especially a heavyweight like Dave.

As a football player, Dave spends the football season bulking up to help the Gators succeed on the gridiron. Once football ends, he needs to get down to 285 pounds. This year, he finished the football season at 312, so he had a long way to go.

"It's so bad," Dave said of cutting weight. "I've got to eat good enough (during football season) so that I'm not putting on fat, it's muscle, but then I've got to eat less for wrestling season so I can lose the fat."

That can be especially difficult because as football season ends, the holidays are beginning. November closes with Thanksgiving before another food-centric holiday, Christmas, comes at the end of December.

"It's having self-control. I can't eat like a fat boy. I've just got to get one plate and be satisfied," Dave joked.

Dave's day typically starts with a pair of eggs, an avocado and toast, before a snack of a granola bar or beef jerky. For dinner, he eats a classic, chicken and rice. Dave also has a different workout routine as he shifts from the gridiron to the mat.

"For football, I'm trying to build muscle, build strength. It's speed and explosiveness," he said. "With wrestling, it's more repetition at a lighter weight."

Nate has been impressed with the way Dave managed to get down to a weight he can compete at, though he stressed the need for a new game plan next year so his weight loss doesn't need to be as extreme.

"He had to cut almost 30 pounds coming into the season just so he could wrestle his first match. That's a lot of commitment right there," Nate said. "You can't even wrestle, but you're here cutting, you're here trying to be on weight so you can wrestle when your time comes.

"We talked this year, he's not going to try to put on just fat. He's going to try to bulk on more muscle and try to stay closer because he'll have to watch his weight a little more going into his senior year because we need him wrestling all of December as well."

PUSHING TO COMPETE

As a junior, Dave is the fifth-ranked heavyweight in 4A as the calendar flips into 2025. He sits behind some decorated wrestlers, including Hartsville's Chavis, who won state titles in 2024 (heavyweight) and 2022 (220), while finishing as a runner-up in 2023 (220). He ranks behind two other previous state qualifiers, seniors from Greer and South Pointe, and Noah Robertson, a sophomore from Travelers Rest.

That's a new lineup of names for Dave, who previously wrestled in 3A. He's excited to see a few new faces on his dance card this season.

"I was happy. I was excited," Dave said of the move to 4A. "That means new challenges, new opponents I get to wrestle, new people I get to meet.

"It's a challenge for myself and a challenge for them. I've got to figure out what works and figure out what I need to defend."

Lakewood's region features two elite teams, Hartsville and South Florence, who are both ranked in the Top 20 in the classification. Dave welcomes the competition.

"It means I've got to work for it," he said. "They don't just throw me a bone; I get to work for it."

Nate thinks Dave has what it takes to win a state title as a junior. If Dave can maintain that same belief, he might just pull it off.

"I think it's more of a mental game. He's got the skill, he's got the work ethic; he's just got to not let himself beat himself," Nate said. "The first guy that he lost to (as a sophomore) was the guy that he's lost to before, and so he might have been going into that match thinking, 'Oh, well, you know, I've already lost to him,' but he's got to realize that he's one of the best in the state and that he can beat anybody.

"So, we've got to get him past that youngster mentality. He can't let himself beat himself. He's got to know that he can beat anybody. He can go toe to toe with everybody in the state ,and he's got to know that himself, deep down inside, and that'll help him a lot when it comes down to it."