By KLAS STOLPE
Sentinel Staff Writer
There was a warmth moving about the Sitka High School mat room on Tuesday.
It was the heat of battle.
Of bodies locked in physical combat.
Even if the doors are open and the air conditioners on, the sweat builds.
It’s wrestling practice.
“Keep moving, let’s go, let’s roll…” assistant coach Wayne Howard instructs. Head coach Will Patrick is away but left instructions.
Returning wrestlers make sure they are carried out.
Senior 145-pound Gavin Hammock beat the Region V second seed during the conference tournament last season and placed third. He went to the state tournament.
“I lost in the blood round,” Hammock said.
The blood round is your last match that determines whether you move on to the placing round or you pack your gear and watch the tourney’s final day.
“It was a good state tournament, though,” he said. “I won two matches and lost two. This is my last year. I’m looking forward to going out there and giving it my all.”
Hammock noted it’s not just brute force in wrestling.
“It’s a lot of technique,” he said. “The amount of time and effort you put into training shows in the sport. You can’t just start off one day and say ‘OK, I want to be a good wrestler.’ It doesn’t work like that. You have to put in the time.”
The Blast Double is his signature move. It involves shooting in, grabbing both the opponent’s legs, and lifting him up and back and down. The move is for the strongest, fastest and most athletic wrestlers.
Hammock grinned as he watched some of the freshmen Wolves on the mat.
“Your senior year sneaks up really fast,” he said. “Four years isn’t that long. You will be better when you’re older if you practice when you are younger.”
Classmates Reilly Holden and JD Gagner work take downs.
Holden is moving from 145 pounds up to 160. He was one point short in his final match at the Region tournament in qualifying for State.
“I am hopefully going to get him back this year,” Holden said, breathless from lifting and being lifted. “For myself and for the team. The team is just fun to travel with.”
Sitka seniors JD Gagner and Reilly Holden warm up during the Wolves wrestling practice on Wednesday.(Sentinel Photo by Klas Stolpe)
Take downs are part of the physical work and athletic contact the sport entails and which both athletes find appealing.
Gagner suffered a concussion the week before Regions, but received an injury default into State at 138. Due to concussion protocols he couldn’t work out for 10 days so went into State out of shape.
“I lost in the blood round,” he said. “It has motivated me all summer. Put a fire under my butt really.”
Gagner works the deck of a Bristol Bay salmon gillnetter in the summers, a life that is a physical grind.
“We have a lot of new guys this year,” he said. “Some young blood that we get to kind of push around and teach. It’s exciting to see how our team has grown over the past few years. This is the biggest program we have had in years.”
Junior Sid Fleming took third at 152 pounds in Regions last season and third at State.
“I beat the guy at State who beat me at Regions,” he said. “So that was pretty cool.”
That athlete, Hunter Wiederspohn from Wrangell, is back at 170 pounds.
“I’m shooting for 160 this year,” Fleming said.
Those matches were in the back of his mind as he salmon seined all summer.
“I think our whole team is kind of integrated together,” he said. “We are all pretty close. It’s nice that there’s a team backing you up.”
Fleming is one of five swim team members doing double sport duty. The swimmers (Fleming, Gagner, Thomas and Aiden Bailey, Noah Blackmon, and Hunter Littlefield) tend to train in the pool early in the morning and save the mats for evening. They also add in two evening swims during the week.
Swimming is both aerobic and anaerobic and provides a full body workout that can sooth the bumps and bruises of grappling.
“It stretches me all out after a rough practice,” Fleming said.
Juniors Max Johnson at 215 and John Welsh at 189 spar on the mat.
Johnson placed third at Regions and seventh at State, beating the second-place Region placer during the State tournament.
He runs cross country and lifts weights to prepare for the season.
“Basically, only preseason wrestling can prepare you for wrestling,” Johnson said. “Only wrestling gets you ready for wrestling. I really like that the sport is all on you. You can’t rely on your teammates to help you. If you don’t do the work it shows only for you. But it’s a team sport too as your score reflects how you did as well. I really like the aspect of two people facing off and putting everything they have done out on the line in front of everybody.”
Welsh has narrowly missed the state tourney the past two seasons.
“The team makes it fun here,” he said. “And our coach. He’s a young guy. He understands the struggles of high school wrestling. I was wrestling all upperclassmen my freshman and sophomore years. I learned that older guys are stronger and quicker, not a lot I can take away from that… except now I’m an upperclassman.”
Junior 152-pounder Thomas Bailey, rappelling along a series of pull-up bars, monkey style, along the gym wall, not only swims but also attacks CrossFit workouts and jiu-jitsu at the Coast Guard base. He has competed in National Ninja Warrior competitions and turned to wrestling when his ninja coach moved away.
“So I had to find something else to do,” he said. “It’s just fun. It’s a challenge. This is learning how to take someone down and pin them. The grip strength from ninja really helps a lot.”
That grip strength will be tested the Wolves travel to Petersburg this weekend.
The trip is something senior Wayne Young, who wrestled at 152 and 145 last season, is looking forward to.
“I did OK last year,” senior 152-pounder Wayne Young said. “I ended up not making it to state because there were too many people in the weight bracket. I like that we have a bigger team and everybody is wanting to wrestle and be in the sport,” he said. “I would like to get to state. I’ll be looking and seeing who I have to take down to do that. The sport teaches will power and sacrifice and dedication and hard work, which sometimes I feel people don’t have.”
The Sitka Wolves roster is completed by senior Kyle England 135; juniors Trenton Hammock 152, Tyler Jackson 189, Kyle Remington 160, and Gabe VanVeen 189; sophomores Noah Blackmon 135, Hunter Johnson 125, and Hunter Littlefield 189; and freshmen Aidan Bailey 132, Chatham Clark 112, Chandler Coonradt 112, Colton Ewers 103, Alex Johnson 285, and Dalton Voron 160.
