“Yeah,” he said.

His dad took him to a wrestling practice when he was 6 or 7, and he never stopped competing.

That was about 10 years ago, and while Isbell never hit an opponent over the head with a metal chair or jumped off a rope around the ring, he has made a name for himself on the wrestling mat.

Isbell, a senior at Middletown High School, is one of the most successful wrestlers in the Greater Miami Conference with hopes of placing at this year’s state meet.

The 5-foot-5, 138-pounder has compiled a 30-4 record with 12 pins this season for the Middies.

He qualified for districts the last two seasons, and with the added experience, hopes to place in the top eight at the state meet.

Christian Dischler, the Middies first-year coach who previously coached at Kings High School, has high praise for Isbell.

“He has fantastic work ethic,” said Dischler, also a special education teacher at MHS. “The things that we do in the (wrestling) room are a bare minimum for him, He’s always going out of his way to find rooms to get into. Every practice I don’t have to look to see if he’s working hard. I know I can zone out that side of the room because I know he’s doing the right things.”

This sounds like a coach’s dream.

“I’d take a whole team of Tylers,” the coach said.

Wrestling is a team sport comprised of individual matches based on weight classes. On the mat, it’s just you against your opponent. Wrestling teaches him accountability, he said.

“It’s not like, ‘It’s my teammate’s fault. He didn’t make the play right,‘” he said.

In wrestling, if you pin your opponent your team receives six points. If you win by 15 or more points, the technical fall earns the team five points. Still, Isbell said he prefers to dominate his opponent and earn a techinal fall.

Dischler said a wrestler can “accidentally” pin their opponent, but it’s “hard to accidentally beat somebody by 15 points,”

Wrestling is in the Isbell family blood. His sister, Lilly, a freshman, also wrestles for the Middies. He was asked who would win if he wrestled his younger sister.

He just smiled and said she’s been wrestling for just three years.

Get involved

The Journal-News will profile a local high school athlete on Fridays. If you have a suggestion, please forward the athlete’s name and high school to Rick McCrabb at rmccrabb1@gmail.com.