Repping Wyoming

The Panthers

Only two teams from Wyoming went to the West Grand Duals in Kremmling, CO for wrestling and both came from Carbon County.

Saratoga High School and Hanna, Elk Mountain, Medicine Bow (HEM) High School sent grapplers to face 11 other Colorado high schools.

Head coach Zach Schmidt said the duals on Friday night were an excellent night for his team, which was down some grapplers due to illness.

Tristan Gray, Max Dahl, Trezdon Martinez and Jacob Flowers did not make the trip to Colorado.

“Any time you miss these big time varsity guys that can do some damage, coming out as well as we did is something to be happy with,” Schmidt said.

The Panthers beat Basalt, West Grand and Hayden on Friday night.

“We really wrestled phenomenally,” Schmidt said. “The most amount of matches we lost, not counting byes and forfeits, were two against Hayden.”

The next day Saratoga did well, but Schmidt said not having four outstanding varsity grapplers probably means the team score was not as high as it would have been.

Saratoga came in 8th at the meet and Schmidt knows they would have done better if the sick wrestlers had made the invite.

In the 113 weight class Jerry Everett placed 3rd with 16 team points. Justin Shotwell came in second scoring 18 team points in the 120 weight class. Cole Verberg placed 3rd in the 285 weight class and garnered 7 team points. Harrison Jackson, in the 132 weight class, scored 4 team points; Andrew Everett, in the 138 weight class, scored 7.5 team points; Heath Cushing, in the 145 weight class, scored 6 team points and Kaden Hedley received 3 team points for his efforts.

John Powell did a great job, said Schmidt, but because the freshman wrestler is in a very tough weight class, it is hard to win.

“We coaches call the weight classes of 132 to 160 as ‘murderers row’ and it is where usually the most experienced wrestlers are,” Schmidt said. “Everyone is tough in those weight classes usually.”

The head coach said A. Everett wrestled better than he had ever before. The wrestler was up 14-2 in points with 25 seconds left before he got out of position and his opponent took advantage pulling off a pin.

“He did everything right until the last 25 seconds and got his body a little out of position,” Schmidt said. “That is why matches last six minutes because, in that time, good things can happen and bad things can happen. If he had won the match he would have been one of the top two kids in the weight class, but losing made him have the toughest back door of anybody. But he wrestled amazingly.”

Schmidt said he is ready to host the next wrestling meet on Dec. 19.

“The name of the game is to get as much experience on the mat as possible,” Schmidt said. “It is good thing for our kids to get a chance to wrestle in front of the home crowd.”

Schmidt said there is still a flu going around so he will assess who will actually wrestle that evening.

He said one aspect of training that as a coach he wants to work on, is how to prevent a letdown after a wrestler goes on the mat in morning with solid performances and in the afternoon dosen’t do as well.

“Those are tough matches for a wrestler to get up for when he has been up since 5 a.m. and goes all day,” Schmidt said. “It is up to us as coaches to get the wrestlers mentally ready to face those later matches because typically those type of matches happen during Regionals and State.”

The Miners

HEM wrestlers are a young team just gaining mat experience, so wrestling head coach Lyle Richardson is happy for the experience against strong, competitive teams. There were some bright spots for the team.

David Cruz in the 195 weight class placed 5th with 7 team points and Charlee Solaas scored 3 points for the team.

Richardson said the Miners always wrestle with heart and he knows the experience the wrestlers are getting now will benefit as the season continues.

The Miners next scheduled meet is at 5:30 p.m. on Dec. 19 at Saratoga for the Saratoga Quad.