Scott Swanson
Last year Sweet Home’s wrestlers missed the team trophy podium at the state wrestling championships for the first time since 2005.
The Huskies were uncharacteristically young and inexperienced and it showed.
But all those young wrestlers got plenty of mat experience and Steve Thorpe, beginning his 18th season as head coach at Sweet Home, predicts a much better campaign for the Huskies in 2014-15. He says he and his wrestlers are ready to do better.
“Last year was not a good year for Sweet Home wrestling, as far as I’m concerned,” Thorpe said. “But it wasn’t my best year of coaching either. I’ve worked very hard over the spring and throughout the summer to get myself focused and to become a better coach. I’ve done what’s necessary and I’m feeding that to the kids right now. They’re starting to respond very, very well.”
The Huskies have two returning state place-winners in Ty Schilling, who was fourth last year at 126 pounds, and Tyrel Miller, who was fifth at 120. Both are seniors.
Schilling last week signed to wrestle at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (see page B3) and Thorpe said he’ll be a wanted man this season.
“This didn’t do him favors by signing. This put a big target on his back. People will want to knock off the kid that signed to a D-I school. I’m very excited for him and proud of him.”
The Huskies also have four other returnees who made the state tournament in sophomore Tyler Fincher (113 at state), senior Anthony Hardee (132), senior Jason Miller (152) and sophomore Kobe Olsen (106). Both Olsen and Hardee competed on an international exchange team in New Zealand last summer.
“We have a good core group of people here,” Thorpe said. “I’ve already seen some very good leadership out of our seniors, but we’ve also got some leaders down there among the underclassmen. That’s been good for us.”
More good news for Sweet Home is that nearly all the team, including the nine incoming freshmen, have previous experience on the mat, which accelerates the learning curve.
“We’ve only got a few kids who have never wrestled in their lives,” Thorpe said. “We’ve got a lot of guys who have come up through the Mat Club and the junior high. It’s nice to start with that benefit.”
Then there’s “big, big leadership,” a refrain Thorpe returned to repeatedly in discussing this year’s team. “I can’t speak enough to that. We’ve got guys who aren’t afraid to say something. Because of that, I think we’re working harder right now than we have been in a while. I know our lifting is at another level right now and the amount of wrestling we’re doing.”
Rounding out the team, as of last week, are: seniors Cole Ashcraft, Travis Petersen and Colyn Van Eck; juniors Gavin Baskin, Dalton Doerfler, Hunter Olheister, Joseph Rasmussen and Daniel Rooney; sophomores Brycen Denver, JC Elder, Oscar Hernandez, Ryan Krause, Nick McIntire, Jake Porter, Devin Stafford and Dillon Stutzman; and freshmen Bryce Coulter, Conner Duran, Justin Kurtz, CJ Mitchell, Boden Petersen, Zak Rivera, Keegan Schuster, Takoda Turner and Ricky Yunke.
Another big plus for the Huskies is the return of assistant coaches Steve Schilling, Tomas Rosa and Matt Mahr, all of whom were with the Huskies last year – Schilling and Rosa for multiple years.
The biggest challenge right now for Sweet Home is lack of depth in the upper weights, which makes it harder for the Huskies to score points against regional programs such as Philomath and Cottage Grove, which tend to have bigger numbers in the bigger weights.
“It would be nice to get some bigger guys,” Thorpe said. “The word’s out. People know how hard we work and it’s a scary thing if you haven’t done it before or at the high school level.
“We’ve got a lot of kids at the same spot, a lot of guys in the middle (weights). We’re still trying to get a few more guys out, welcoming more guys to fill some holes.”
But the Huskies will be “tough,” he predicts. “We’re tougher than we were last year. I have a lot of expectations.”
One of those is a “very, very tough schedule.”
The Huskies will hold an intersquad match, free to the public, at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 3, in the Main Gym, and then things get really serious, starting with the Perry Burlison Invitational at Cascade on Saturday, Dec. 6. Following that is a gauntlet of tough duals and tournaments, including what have become perennial appearances at the Oregon Classic in Redmond and the Tournament of Champions at Liberty High School.
“The Perry Burlison is going to be a meat-grinder,” Thorpe said. “Cascade hosts it and Crook County will be there. They’re awfully good.”
The whole region is good, he said.
“We are one of the strongest regions in the state. We have some of the top teams. North Marion is very good and Elmira is going to be tough this year.
“We just have to work at getting numbers through (the regional tournament to state) and just get better in February than we are right now.”