Champs’ Similar Paths Started With Coaches

East Valley and Lakeside wrestling teams took amazingly similar paths to last week’s state championships, from last summer’s preparation to the final team scores.

“On a week-to-week basis our scores almost paralleled each other, down to district and regional points and our state berths,” said EV coach Craig Hanson. “Who knows why it is? It just happened.”

Hanson was Lakeside coach Scott Jones’ assistant for four years before taking the EV job.

“We said, wouldn’t it be neat if we could win a championship in the same year, when we split,” said Hanson.

Both had young teams and last summer prepared their wrestlers at a jointly sponsored intensive training camp with Snohomish and North Central at the University of Montana.

It was patterned after the J. Robinson Camp in Ashland, Ore. After spending $12,000 to attend, Jones said, they discovered they could do it themselves for a quarter of the cost.

“I think the kids will tell you it was the most effective thing they’ve done as a team.”

Lakeside shared the Northeast A League championship and East Valley won the Frontier League.

Both dominated districts, scoring 296-1/2 and 385 points, respectively, while advancing 14 and 13 wrestlers to regionals.

Lakeside qualified 10 and EV nine to state while scoring 182 and 187 points during regional championships.

In Tacoma, the Eagles had one finalist, the Knights two. Each placed seven wrestlers among the top seven.

Lakeside won its tournament by 4-1/2 points with 96. EV won by six points with 97.

Hanson had been a head coach at two schools before joining Jones at Lakeside, then branching out again.

“He and I spent so much time together, I don’t know the hours we put in,” he said. “We got along well. This is kind of a shared dream, really.”

Last grasps

There were 28 sets of brothers, roughly 5 percent of the field in this year’s tournament… . North Mason coach Ed Amick sent a wrestler to state for the 30th straight year. …

Pierce County League AA 108-pound finalists J.P. Marinacci of Tahoma and Gene Huh of Fife faced each other for the 11th time. Marinacci has won all 11, but Huh took him to overtime in the title bout.

, DataTimes