Ashland Source will select one student athlete to be recognized as the Park National Bank Athlete of the Month during the 2023-24 school year. Nominations for Athlete of the Month are accepted from Athletic Directors and Coaches, but are ultimately chosen by Ashland Source and are based on the student’s exceptional athletic performance, effective teamwork and achievement in their communities. Park National Bank is proud to support this initiative and is giving the athletic department of each school $1,000 in honor of each athlete chosen.
NANKIN – If setting a school record in a sport is like climbing a hill, setting a wrestling record at Mapleton High School must feel like summiting Mount Everest.
Brock Durbin finished his career on the MHS mats in March with four of them. Not a bad landing considering he did it in a program with a deeply rich pedigree and an Ashland-area-high seven state titles to its name.
Add Durbin’s records – which include career and single-season nearfalls (339 and 111) and career and single-season technical falls (76 and 26) – to the rest of his wrestling accomplishments and the list grows long enough to warrant a scroll.
On March 10, the senior became a rare four-time state-placing matman for the Mounties at the Division III state tournament. The only opponent keeping him from adding to Mapleton’s state-championship haul was Archbold senior Brodie Dominique, a Michigan State commit who edged Durbin 3-0 in their 144-pound title bout and finished in the Top 15 in Ohio history for career wins (209).
It was the second consecutive state runner-up finish for Durbin, who closed his career with a 158-18 record and has been selected by Ashland Source as the Park National Bank Athlete of the Month for March.
“I kind of felt like I had a little bit more experience and I just tried to leave it all on the line since it was my final year in high school,” Durbin said. “I just wanted to be able to look back and say I gave it my all and did everything I possibly could.”
The senior’s final chapter of high school wrestling was resounding.
Durbin finished as a two-time Firelands Conference champion and a four-time sectional champion. He had one of the most dominant runs of anyone in Ohio in this year’s district tournament, winning his second straight crown there behind a 75-second pin and routs of 16-1, 17-2 and 10-2.
He was a high-scoring technician on the mat, finishing his season with a 46-2 mark – five wins better than his impressive 41-2 record as a junior. And he did it while bumping up his weight class from 126 to 144, building strength while trying to avoid any pitfalls or injuries in his final high school campaign.
“It definitely is a little bit more pressure,” Durbin said, “just thinking in your head, ‘What if all this happens?’ I tried to just block it out and just wrestle.”
There also was the pressure of adding to the legacy of the Durbin name at Mapleton.
Ten years ago, Brock’s older brother, Zack Durbin, closed another one of the best careers in area wrestling history. Also a two-time state runner-up, his 182-8 overall record represents the best winning percentage in MHS history (96 percent).
When Zack qualified to state in 2014, he was the Ashland area’s first four-time qualifier since former Mountie Marcus Gordon in 2002.
Not even 10 years old at that time, Brock still remembers watching his older brother establish himself as the best pinner in Mapleton history (111 for his career). As he grew up, he said there was a friendly rivalry at home.
“Obviously we want to do better than each other, but it’s out of love, so it’s never, ‘Oh, I want to do this just to beat you,’ ” Brock said. “We kind of just look up to each other and (compare careers) and try to see who could beat (the other in different aspects).”
The Durbin household was loaded with talent. Along with their two wrestling stars, parents Derek and Allison Durbin also had a daughter in 2019 MHS graduate Brooke Durbin, who briefly played softball at Wilmington College before the pandemic halted her athletic career.
Derek, who took over as the wrestling head coach at Mapleton last season and was an assistant during Zack’s time with the program, said watching both of his boys excel on the mats was quite a ride.
“I’m extremely proud of both of them,” said Derek, whose boys combined for a 340-26 record and seven state medals. “They did what they could with the time they had. … They left their mark, that’s for sure.”
A 1995 Mapleton graduate, Derek wrestled one season in high school, but his knowledge of the sport grew due to the talent of his boys decades later. He said he only knew the basics when Zack began wrestling, so he learned as much as he could to be sure he could be a go-to resource for his boys.
Zack eventually wrestled for three years at Kent State University and Brock hopes to add to a rich history of talented locals to thrive on the mats at Ashland University.
“I thought he could do big things,” Derek said of his youngest. “I knew his style was different from Zack’s, so it was just a matter of him imposing his style against the guys he was going to wrestle.”
Brock said he ratcheted up his physicality by building his strength as he got older after wrestling at 120 pounds as an underclassman. He also said he used his experience as a golfer – he qualified to state on the links as a sophomore – to approach wrestling with a patient, steady mindset.
Everything seemed to help along the way, and in the classroom, Durbin has accumulated a 3.9 GPA that will have him graduating in the Top 20 in his class.
He said it’s been fun to sign autographs and answer wrestling questions from some of the kids in the Mapleton youth program.
“I feel like I definitely left something here (in terms of a legacy),” said Durbin, who plans to pursue either marketing or accounting at AU. “Obviously, I wanted to put (a state championship banner up), but sometimes it just doesn’t happen and you’ve just got to learn with it.
“Hopefully my impact can help motivate younger kids to want to be just like me or the other (former Mapleton standouts). I just wanted to be a good role model.”
