NewsCenter 7’s Lauren Clark spent time Wednesday inside the family’s home in Xenia.
“All those moves that my dad showed me, that’s why I think I won,” Markus Holcomb said.
Terry Holcomb was his son’s wrestling coach up until the fatal crash that claimed his life Feb. 18.
“I think he knew that his father raised him not to be a quitter so he had to do it,” said Jen Donovan, Markus’ mother.
Services for Terry Holcomb will be held Saturday, and then his son competes Sunday in the state wrestling competition.
FIRST REPORT (Feb. 23)
The son of a Xenia man who was killed in a crash in northwest Indiana on Thursday, won his bracket in a regional wrestling tournament on Sunday.
Three days after Terry Holcomb, 29, was killed in a crash on I-65 in Lake County, Ind., his son Markus Holcomb competed in the regional tournament at a Springboro school.
Markus, a Xenia student, defeated each wrestler he faced, including his final opponent Troy Wisecup, a Centerville wrestler, according to Wisecup’s mother Robin Laake.
“What makes this story so touching is that this courageous kid won all three matches with pins and took home first place without his daddy,” Laake said in an email.
According to Laake and other friends of the Holcomb family, Terry Holcomb was Markus Holcomb’s coach prior to his passing on Thursday.
Also killed in the crash on I-65 was James Evans, 27, of Dayton.
Family members said Holcomb and Evans were on their way to Chicago to complete a job for their tile business when the deadly crash occurred.