He stepped onto the mat confidently like he had done so many times before, adjusting his head gear as he faced his opponent.
James Wood wrestler Max Mooney knew the stakes of this match in December of 2024. It was his first bout at the prestigious Beast of the East wrestling tournament held each year at the University of Delaware. In order to qualify for the highly competitive bracket that featured elite wrestlers from across the country, Mooney had to rely on his skills and his dogged work ethic. Now that he was here, he wasn’t about to waste his opportunity.
He steadied his breath, took his stance, and waited for the official’s whistle. When the signal was given, he did what he did best — he attacked his opponent. He took shot after shot, his pace quickening with every minute that passed by. During the second period, he angled for his foe’s leg but missed. To avoid Mooney’s takedown attempt, his opponent reacted by shifting his weight, bringing his knee down directly on top of Mooney’s outstretched hand.
Mooney didn’t know it at the time — he was too busy securing another takedown en route to a major decision — but his hand was broken. Despite the victory, and the injury to his hand, Mooney wasn’t pleased with his performance, believing that he hadn’t been aggressive enough.
“I wrestled scared after I broke my hand,” said Mooney, now a senior who wrestles at 138 pounds. “I didn’t know my hand was broken until later. I just thought I was being scared.”
Mooney’s ability to persevere through physical adversity, while also falling short of his self-imposed lofty standards, is indicative of an athlete who holds himself to the highest degree of accountability.
It’s also representative of his love of hard work and genuine passion for a sport as physically demanding as wrestling that has fueled his prolific career at James Wood, which will conclude with Friday’s and Saturday’s Class 4 state tournament at the Virginia Beach Sports Center. A three-time state medalist, Mooney (25-2 record) is looking for his first state title.
Growing up, Mooney played many different sports, including wrestling, since he was 5 years old. But he never excelled at any of them. He enjoyed having fun with friends, but he didn’t see sports as something to master.
In eighth grade, however, that mindset evolved. A self-described “pudgy kid,” Mooney decided to play sports for more than just having fun — he wanted to become good at something. Of all the sports that he participated in, he chose wrestling.
As a freshman at James Wood, his development was slow. He didn’t find success until he won the Northwestern District title in his freshman season at 106 pounds. Still, Mooney saw incremental improvements, and realized that his biggest strength lay in his work ethic.
He gradually improved his technique. He learned from more experienced wrestlers on James Wood’s roster. His practice habits changed. His eager willingness to outwork everyone did not.
“I never doubted my ability, he said. “I was always willing to work harder than the next person. I never made excuses and got in as much work as I could, and it led to success for me.”
That success materialized in droves. During his first freshman season, Mooney finished with a record of 41-11, including 17 pins. In addition to claiming the Northwestern District title, he finished in second and fifth in the Region 4C and Class 4 state tournaments, respectively.
With a successful first high school season in the books, Mooney embraced the grind of offseason workouts and training. He loved the grueling conditioning. He relished the extra repetitions after practice with his club team.
His other hobbies of snowboarding and riding dirt bikes necessarily took a back seat to wrestling on a daily basis. As James Wood coach Cory Crenshaw put it, “If he could wrestle 24 hours a day, he would do it.”
Mooney used a rigid structure to maintain his training and maximize improvements to his technique. He made tedious schedules. He scrupulously maintained his diet. Most importantly, he built habits that remain with him to this day.
“I always make schedules to make sure I’m doing the right things,” he said. “I’m lifting and wrestling as much as I can. I eat really healthy. My diet is one of my biggest priorities and I think that’s why I’m able to outlast guys in the third period in matches because I’m able to just keep pushing.”
During his sophomore season, the fruits of his labors bloomed once more. He recorded a record of 36-4, the area’s seventh highest win total, and pinned 18 opponents. He also finished second in both the Region 4D and Class 4 state tournaments.
“Going into that state tournament, I was a regional runner-up and there was no reason for me not to make the state finals,” Mooney said. “I never thought for a minute that I wasn’t capable of accomplishing that. I knew how hard I worked, and I didn’t think there was a person in that arena who was better than me.”
Despite coming up short in the state final against Orange County’s Justin Jones, the experience helped fuel his desire to become even better.
“Having that mentality even after losing in the finals kind of lit a fire underneath me to keep getting better and better,” he said.
With a renewed sense of resolve and a vision for what he wanted to accomplish, Mooney once again fell back into the rhythm of offseason workouts, but this time as a leader in the James Wood wrestling room, rather than a pupil.
Crenshaw said it was in the run-up to his junior year that Mooney’s leadership qualities became an integral part of his wrestling life.
“When he was a freshman, he was just trying to improve,” he said. “Later on, though, it was clear that he was trying to set a standard and impart that standard onto others, as well.”
After sustaining a broken hand at Beast of the East during his junior season, Mooney consulted with a physician about his recovery. A recommended timeline of two and a half months was presented to Mooney, but he instead cut it to just one month through rigorous therapy, and returned to the mat later in February. He finished the season with a 19-2 record at 132 pounds, and placed second at the Region 4D tournament and third at the Class 4 state tournament.
Mooney credited another pillar of his life for his expedited recovery and his ability to wrestle while injured.
“What really helped me was my faith in God,” he said. “I really built my relationship with God and got close with Him and I knew that he had a greater plan for me, whether I wrestled or not.”
In part due to his injury, it was after the postseason that year that Mooney made some changes to the way he approached matches. Whereas before his main goal was to pin every opponent that he faced, he instead opted to score as many points as possible. This subtle shift allowed him to gain more in-match experience and improve individual techniques, such as his ability to sustain offense from the neutral position.
To this point, wrestling had been about dominating his opponents. Now, it was about outworking them. He saw it as a challenge to be as technical and fluid as possible in every bout.
“This year I’ve transitioned to trying to score as many points as I can, which is why you see more technical falls than pins,” he said. “I’m just more focused on scoring points and developing my wrestling rather than the end outcome.”
This newfound philosophy, coupled with years of experience of wrestling deep into the postseason, has enabled Mooney to have a productive senior season. He has 13 pins at 138 pounds. His lone losses came during his second appearance at Beast of the East last December, in which he finished 3-2, including taking the sixth-ranked wrestler in the country down to the wire in a 4-1 loss. He earned his 100th career win at James Wood during a tri-meet against Handley and Clarke County.
Mooney helped lead the Colonels to their second straight Region 4D title earlier this month, an achievement that Mooney believed reflected the strong relationships and work ethic that James Wood’s wrestlers have established over the course of his career.
“The culture here has always been to work hard and I feel like it’s really built up over the last few years,” he said. “If you go to any of our tournaments you’ll see half of our team in one person’s corner because that’s just how we are. I feel like that’s a big reason why we’ve been so successful and why our team culture is better than most teams in Virginia.”
Crenshaw underscored this sentiment, reiterating the importance of a team-first mentality across the board in his program.
“We’re not a program that plans to send a bunch of kids to the podium each year,” he explained. “We try to build the most complete lineup possible to try to place well as a team at states. And it takes kids like Max to help push the team along and grow their skills. He’s helped a few of our guys outside of practice and during the offseason. Our culture has just grown tremendously. The groups of kids that we have now, a lot of that is due to people like Max who encourage them and keep things positive.”
In addition to a state title that has eluded him to this point, Mooney has his sights set on competing in several high-level national tournaments this summer, including Fargo and the US Open. These tournaments present a sizable challenge, Mooney said, but are part of his larger ambitions that he has carefully developed for years.
After graduation this spring, Mooney hopes to enroll in Greens Farms Academy in Westport, Connecticut, a preparatory school that boasts an elite, nationally recognized wrestling program, to further develop his wrestling before transferring to the United States Air Force Academy.
Crenshaw said that attending Air Force had been the centerpiece of Mooney’s dreams for as long as he had known his wrestler.
“That’s always been the game plan for him,” Crenshaw said. “In one of the first conversations that we ever had, he said that he wanted to wrestle at the Division 1 level, and that military construct had always been in the back of his mind. At this point, I just think that it’s starting to come to fruition for him, that he has the ability to wrestle at that level potentially as long as he can stay healthy, and if he wants to go serve his country, then that’s even better.”
Mooney originally connected with the Air Force wrestling program after competing at Fargo and other national tournaments last summer. His relationship with Greens Farms Academy’s coaching staff helped further develop in-roads at Air Force, which reinforced his desire to go the preparatory school route straight out of high school.
Such big dreams would be daunting to some. Not to Mooney, though. His hard work, resilience, and limitless discipline have afforded him these opportunities. He didn’t feel as though he was owed these things, rather that they were just part of the plan.
“I know how hard I work and I don’t think that anyone can compete with me,” Mooney said. “I have faith in God, in my training, and I have the support of my teammates and coaches. I’m just really confident in my game right now.”