Aidan Whitis proved in his first three years of high school wrestling he could improve and succeed with limited support as an independent wrestler at Cheverus High.
Now, for the first time in his high school career, Whitis has a full team around him. He transferred to four-time defending Class A champion Marshwood for his senior season.
So far the results have been exemplary.
“It’s huge being in a (training) room (full) of guys who are even more experienced and more talented than I am,” Whitis said shortly after a technically sound 6-3 championship win over top-seeded Ethan Boucher of Mountain Valley at last week’s Noble Invitational. “There are just so many bodies to train with, so you get different looks every day.”
Whitis is 20-0 this season after winning the 138-pound weight class at the Noble tourney, another nice title to go with his first-place finish at 145 pounds in December at the Atlantic Invitational in Wells.
It’s not just Whitis benefiting from the move. Marshwood is also winning. Whitis is helping the Hawks overcome the graduation loss of four-time state champions Cody Hughes and Jackson Howarth, three-time champ Brett Gerry and 2015 Class A champ Killian Murphy, who beat Whitis last season.
“Him coming here has helped me,” said junior Bradley Beaulieu, the Class A champion and New England runner-up at 126 pounds last season. “He’s great to drill with.
“Him coming here has not only helped me but helped a lot of kids.”
Marshwood Coach Matt Rix said he didn’t know Whitis would be attending Marshwood until the school year started. Rix said it didn’t take long for Whitis to begin to “lead by example,” in the wrestling room. Whitis was named a captain before the season.
Wrestling as an independent for Cheverus High, Whitis showed toughness, a willingness to learn and resiliency.
He took his lumps at 106 pounds as a freshman and did not place at the Western A regional meet.
“I was 95 pounds as a freshman,” Whitis said. “I wanted to play football and basketball but most of all I wanted to be successful.”
As a sophomore, he improved to fourth in Western A and qualified for the state championship meet at 113 pounds.
Last season, Whitis was runner-up at the regional and fourth at the state meet, barely qualifying for the New England Qualifier tournament, which has earned the unofficial title of “all-states.” Whitis shocked the field, advancing to the final and winning the 132-pound title via an injury default when Ellsworth’s Peyton Cole was unable to wrestle the final match.
That was a big step forward for Whitis, who previously had been best known as Iain Whitis’ younger brother. Iain Whitis won 2012 and 2013 Class A titles when he wrestled as an independent at Cheverus.
The Whitis family lives in Gorham and had grown deeply attached to the Cheverus school, staff and community, according to Lisa Whitis, the boys’ mother. But with Iain set to begin his freshman year as a student and wrestler at John Carroll University in Ohio, a private Jesuit university located outside Cleveland, a second tuition proved untenable.
Lisa and Blaine Whitis looked into having their younger son spend his senior year living with one of Lisa’s two sisters, who live in Falmouth and South Berwick.
Aidan now lives with his aunt Jane McLaughlin in South Berwick.
That Marshwood had a wrestling program (Falmouth does not) was just one of several factors in the decision-making process, his mother said.
“It was a holistic evaluation,” Lisa Whitis said. “He’s on the math team. (Marshwood has) the advanced placement classes. They have a really high rating.”
Aidan Whitis is currently taking AP calculus, statistics and physics.
“People can say what they want but it was a very complicated and unbelievably painful decision to leave Cheverus and it’s going to be even more painful when graduation day comes and Aidan isn’t at Cheverus,” Lisa Whitis said.
Aidan Whitis said being on a dedicated wrestling team has helped compensate for leaving behind his Cheverus friends.
The team has also given him something he hasn’t had – the strong sense of being part of a whole team instead of a solo performer.
“My matches never counted toward a team score before,” Whitis said. “It means so much more to have my matches count.”
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