Practice partners with big ambitions, East senior wrestlers aim to go out on top in final state tournament

Bettye Davis East High senior Kenton Cooke’s goal coming out of middle school was to join the elite few in the history of the state as four-time state champion.

After not cracking the top five as a freshman and coming up short in the finals as a sophomore, he has his eyes set on being a two-time state champion even though he won’t be defending his previous title at 130 pounds from last year.

Deshawn Barbee is his longtime friend and drilling partner on the Thunderbirds wrestling team and after coming up short in the state finals as a freshman and finishing fourth in each of the past two years, he hopes that fourth time will be the charm at the ASAA state tournament starting on Friday and concluding Saturday.

“That’d be amazing,” Cooke said. “It’d be great to do it with Deshawn. Both of us expect each other to go out there and win it. That’s our goal and in the wrestling room. We always push each other. It’s what is expected and now we just have to go make it happen.”

The two of them “go way back” and came up through the same club system at one point.

“We were opponents in middle school and in high school we’ve been drilling partners,” Cooke said. “It’s good to have someone you can share the journey with that is alongside you.”

He has seen tremendous growth from Barbee during their senior season and is grateful for the strides their training together has helped him improve over the years.

“We push each other and make each other better,” Cooke said.

Barbee spent part of the summer training with a high school out of state and believes that the time he and Cooke spend pushing each other in practice have made them both “way better.”

“We were putting in work at the beginning of the summer before I left and when I came back, we’ve been training with each other ever since,” Barbee said.

East wrestling head coach Mark Hoffer met the two wrestlers at a young age around the time they were in the fifth or sixth grade and has had a front row seat to their growth and maturation.

“Deshawn was a judo guy and Kenton was a very competitive wrestler,” he said. “They’ve just challenged each other coming up and are working with and tormenting one another.”

Top contenders with humble mindsets

Both wrestlers are expected to do well at state and will be favorites to make the finals given the dominant senior seasons they’ve had.

Barbee is determined to make the most of his final opportunity and finish on top of the podium as a senior.

“That last fourth place really motivated me over the summer and I’ve just been putting work in with my coaches,” he said. “I went to North Carolina and trained with a team there and got better then came back and trained even harder.”

Barbee won his fourth straight CIC region title this past weekend and is confident that he will achieve his ultimate goal at the state tournament.

“It would feel really good,” he said. “It would feel like all my hard work finally paid off.”

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Barbee boasts a 21-1 record and has been undefeated since losing his first match of the year.

His lone loss of the season came in his first tournament of the season against Chance Halverson of the Fairbanks-based Student Wrestling Development Program in a 4-2 decision at the 2023 Houston Hawks Altercation. He wrestled back and avenged it the very next day with a 3-1 decision in a consolation match on his way to placing third.

“It’s been going great and I’ve been taking it one match at a time,” Barbee said. “After that one loss I came back with my team and (later won) against the kid that beat me and ever since, I’ve been getting better with every tournament.”

Cooke is undefeated at his natural weight of 140 pounds this year with a dominant 28-0 record heading into state. His mindset throughout the year has been to “just stay focused and keep doing what I’ve been doing since I was young.”

“My love for wrestling, my consistency, always putting in work, loving the journey, and trying to get better every day,” Cooke said. “Nothing really changes.”

He had one of the most exciting and dramatic finals matches at state last year when he bested Matthew Mitchell of Colony. While both wrestlers bulked up a bit since then, there won’t be a rematch of their epic bout because Mitchell is wrestling at 135 pounds. Although the two of them did face off in their first tournament of the season and Cooke came away with a 6-4 sudden victory.

“He won state sophomore year and I won junior,” he said. “It would’ve been a great trilogy.”

Wrestling origins and plans after high school

Cooke’s journey on the mat began after his short soccer playing days ended 13 years ago when he was five years old.

“I absolutely hated it,” Cooke said. “I just stood out there and did nothing. My parents told me I would have to do some sport in the winter and I decided to wrestle.”

Anchorage Freestyle was the first club he ever went to and he’s wrestled every club season through high school and started taking it really seriously in eighth grade.

He is committed to wrestle at Division I South Dakota State University, where he’ll be joined by fellow Alaskan prep star Jack Nash of Colony who was the 2022 Gatorade Player of the Year for football and committed to become a Jackrabbit last month.

“It’s exciting that two Alaska kids are going Division I,” Cooke said. “They’re on the rise. The coaching staff and facilities are all great. They have a good family based with athletics and how they run the programs”

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He intends to study electrical engineering in college and even though he’d be open to wrestling after college, Cooke is also interested in coaching.

Barbee has been wrestling for nearly a decade dating back to when he was in sixth grade. He was first introduced and encouraged to try out the sport by a former coach whose son played on the same flag football team as him.

“Every day he would come up to my dad and say ‘Your son should wrestle,’ ” Barbee said. “After the last game of the season my dad asked me ‘Do you want to wrestle?” and I said ‘Sure, why not.’ ”

From there, he joined the Alaska Battle Cats wrestling club and he was hooked after his first practice.

“I went to the practice, wrestled that day and was like ‘Man I love this’ and have loved it ever since,” Barbee said.

He was able to parlay his time spent out of state into a scholarship offer to wrestle at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke where he intends to study business.

“My first goal is to get my degree,” said Barbee, who will be the first member of his family to attend college, according to his father. “After college, if there is an opportunity to keep wrestling, I’ll keep wrestling but I kind of want to do MMA.”