By VERNON ROBISON
Moapa Valley Progress
The stage is set for an exciting season of Pirate Wrestling. The Moapa Valley High School Wrestling program continues to grow and individual wrestlers are training hard and showing improvement and promise.
The team started early this season with the Charger Duals, a tough tournament held last weekend in Las Vegas. MVHS Head Coach Tyson Houston said that, even though there wasn’t a lot of match winning for his Pirates, he was encouraged by the level of growth in technique that he saw in his athletes.
“We knew that this would be a tough one because its Thanksgiving weekend and kids are spending time with family,” Houston said. “But the growth that I saw among those that went made it all worth it.”
The first day of competition was rough. After all, the team had only been practicing for about two weeks before this early tournament.
But as the weekend continued, Houston said his wrestlers emerged with much better skills. “They started shooting, looking more aggressive, and just not quitting,” Houston said. “It was fun to watch that transformation. There is a lot of promise there.”
The team has grown in numbers this year. There are 18 wrestlers on the squad, up from last year’s 14.
It takes. at minimum, fourteen on the team to fill in every weight class. But since some of this year’s Pirate athletes are wrestling in the same weight class, there are still a few holes in the lineup. These include in the 113 lb. class, the 126 lb. class and the 152 lb. class.
“We will have a few people who will drop in weight after the first few weeks,” Houston said. “So all that may change, but we will probably have some holes.”
That makes it difficult to compete at the team level against large schools that are several athletes deep in each weight class, Houston added.
“As a small school, though, we know that its going to be hard to compete at the team level going in,” he said. “The great thing about wrestling is that it is also an individual sport. So we work on each athlete to advance individually to the state level. We have a very good chance on those grounds.”
The Pirates have two returning seniors that will be strong points for the team. Both Russell Bodily and Hayden Redd competed at the State meet last year as juniors. Bodily placed third in last year’s state tournament. Redd ended up just short of state placement.
“Both of those guys will be a force on the team this year,” Houston said. “They are hungry and they will probably go to state this year.”
Another senior, Cropper Henrie, will be sorely missed by the Pirates this season. Henrie suffered a concussion early in the football season and is still recovering.
“Cropper is a strong kid and he has a lot of experience,” Houston said. “He has been wrestling since eighth grade. His loss will be a huge blow to the team.”
The Pirate coaching staff has been busy trying to recruit more athletes from the football program to wrestle. Houston said that they had been successful at bringing on two first year juniors that will be athletes to watch. These include Fox Soderquist and Justin Proffit.
“If they keep up the good work they will be great,” Houston said. “They have had a total of two weeks of practice; that is the extent of their wrestling experience. And yet they wrestled in about nine matches at last week’s tournament. They came a long way!”
Houston hopes that these football athletes that have joined the team will recognize the benefits that wrestling will bring to their football game and pass it on to other football team mates.
“The fact is that wrestling will make them all that more successful on the football field,” Houston said. “I just hope that the word spreads about that and we will see more football players come out.”
Perhaps the biggest story for MVHS Wrestling is the number of freshman that came out this year. The team brought on seven new freshmen, all of them with previous wrestling experience in the Pirate Youth Wrestling program.
“I think that is the first time we have had so many come up,” Houston said. “There will be more next year as well. It is pretty exciting for the future of the program.”
Freshman athletes to watch this year will be Chance Houston, Cyrus Katich and Clay Whipple. All have been wrestling since they were small children.
The first couple of weeks in the season will bring some exciting wrestling for the Pirates. This week, the Pirates face off against their rival Virgin Valley High School in a Tri meet, including Enterprise, to be held in Mesquite on Thursday, Dec. 5.
On Dec. 9, the Bulldogs return the favor and will travel to Moapa Valley for another faceoff against the Pirates.
Another highly anticipated pre-season matchup will be two days later on Dec. 11. On that date, the Hurricane Tigers will come to town and go up against the rival Pirates.
