Last Friday, Jan. 22, the FHN varsity wrestling team fell to Troy 42-10, but the news of the day was that the 1991 State-Champion wrestling team was inducted into the FHN Athletic Hall of Fame.

“It’s nice to come back,” three-time state champion wrestler Jason Sexton said, “to see the type of tradition that’s been built here at Francis Howell North. It’s unique that I was a part of that very first phase of things. I think this program is nice. It’s nice coming back. And I still wear the colors, and I’m proud of it.”

Sexton graduated in 1990, meaning that he was just one year shy of winning the coveted team championship, but his individual success more than made up for the lacking of his team. He became FHN’s first individual state champion in any sport in 1988, winning the wrestling title, and he won the same championship in 1989 and 1990.

The following year, FHN would win its first and only wrestling state championship with two State Qualifiers and five State Medalists, not to mention plenty of veteran senior leadership.

“Brian Slingerland and Neil Gwin and myself were the senior leaders on that team, and we really rallied around each other,” 1991 senior and state champion Steve Pisciotta said. “Team camaraderie was a big deal. We just wanted to work together and push each other and try to win a state championship.”

As Pisciotta elluded to, the preseason preparation was the defining factor of that historic ‘91 season, but, says coach Harold Ritchie, the team may have gotten a little lucky.

“We just had a really good group,” Ritchie said. “We thought we had a chance to possibly win a state championship. Everything had to fall into place for that to happen, and everything went our way. It was a once in a lifetime thing for most of us.”

Ritchie immediately followed that statement up by describing the strength of his tournament team and the importance of the conference championship tournament in gaining momentum for the state tournament.

“We had our conference tournament near the end of the season,” Ritchie said, “and we pretty much dominated the tournament. Everybody was firing on all cylinders. At that point, we pretty well thought we were going to be right in contention.”

It wasn’t just the tournament or the coaching, though, that put the ‘91 Knights on top. The wrestlers supplied themselves with plenty of self-motivation in the form of friendly competitions and fun.

“A lot of it was all of us just getting along,” Pisciotta said. “We had a lot of fun in what we did. That year, we [the five state medalists] had a competition going on about who could get the most takedowns. You would see guys going out in the match going after guys going harder and harder all the time. I was fun because we made a game out of it, and by the end of the year, we had all broken the takedown records from the previous year.”

Individual records, though, only satisfy wrestlers for so long, as Sexton points out when he was asked if he ever regretted not winning it all as a team.

“You look at those faces and see all those kids,” Sexton said, “and there are a lot of those kids that I remember very well, and I definitely know I had an influence. At the same time, they went ahead and did something that I was never a part of. So, in some ways, I’m sort of envious… But I don’t regret anything, especially not 25 years later. No, I don’t regret any of it.”

Every way you look at it, the FHN 1991 varsity wrestling team was a special one, and no one could be more proud of their accomplishments than their coach, Mr. Harold Ritchie.

“I’m just really happy that we had all of the people come back for this [the Hall of Fame induction],” Ritchie said. “A lot of the state team is here. As a coach, that’s what’s rewarding- being able to work with all these people and develop friendships. We really had some great people pass through our program, and a lot of them are here tonight showing their support for us, and it’s really nice.”