Athlete of the Week: Hunter Foss, Valley View

Foss is a senior wrestler for Valley View. He won the 132-pound weight class at the Miamisburg Pool Tournament and along the way picked up his 100th career victory.

For his efforts, Foss was named the Dayton Daily News Athlete of the Week for Jan. 5 through Jan. 11, earning the honor through reader voting at DaytonDailyNews.com.

“I was really surprised,” he said. “I didn’t know how big of a deal it was. I’m thankful for someone to put me in it for sure.”

Foss was the 3-seed in the field of 16 grapplers at Miamisburg. He won his first two pool matches via pinfall over wrestlers from Sidney and Miamisburg and received a default win in his final match to advance as one of the four pool winners.

In the semifinals, he defeated Kaiden Mullins of Lakota West, who was the 2-seed, by a 7-6 decision. He captured the weight class title by beating Troy’s Braylon Brown 8-7 in the finals. He came back from early first period deficits in both matches to win.

“I thought I performed pretty well and I just had trust in my game plan that coaches have prepared for me,” Foss said. “I know my coaches have helped me a lot and they really helped me keep mindset to be good and to stay calm.”

It was the second consecutive tournament win for Foss. He captured the Valley View Wrestling Invitational title the week prior and has advanced to the title match in each of the first five tournaments the Spartans has entered. Foss has a 21-3 record this season after the Miamisburg title.

Foss is a three-time district qualifier. It’s been a goal since his freshman year to make it to state and after an injury cut his season short last year, he’s ready to make the most of his senior year.

“I had to make do with what I had left of the season,” Foss said of his junior year. “I ended up being a district qualifier and winning a match and was glad to make it that far, but that wasn’t really what I had hoped and planned for the season. I just want to make it to state this year.”

Foss said doing as well as he can in the bigger tournaments helps calm his mind and allows him to know what needs to be done each time he takes the mat. Two titles show he is doing something right.

“I used to struggle mentally, but you really just got to shake it all off, keep your head down and I keep moving forward,” Foss said.

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