Knights Pin State East Valley Wrestlers Set Sights High, Then Followed Through With Effort

From diverse backgrounds and differing locales, they gathered with a common purpose - to win East Valley’s first state wrestling championship.

It was a goal born of wrestling’s equivalent to boot camp and played out through an overwhelming dominance in local matches and invitational tournaments.

Even when events turned sour on the second day of Mat Classic IX in Tacoma, these Knights, were seldom faint of heart.

They won Fair Lady.

East Valley’s championship was the Spokane area’s seventh overall in the sport’s 44-year state history.

“I think it really started with last year and the guys saying they wanted to win one before they got out of high school,” said coach Craig Hanson. “They still were really young and definitely weren’t state caliber at the time.”

So they wrestled in freestyle events. They attended camps, including a joint East ValleyLakeside High intensive camp in Montana that pushed the limits of physical and mental endurance.

They improved.

The program further benefitted from the addition of three transfers whose impact cannot be understated.

Christopher Duncan was a 178-pound state runnerup last year in Richland. This year, he he willingly dropped to 168 pounds, making room for Selah transfer Rob Gillespie, the Knight 178 pounder.

Tristan Beeman returned to EV after a year at Rogers. He wrestled at 215 pounds in dual matches before settling at 190 pounds for tournaments.

“What they did most for us was the mental part,” said Hanson. “Knowing they were here gave us a boost to make a run.”

Duncan and Beeman were among nine state qualifiers who scored the points that produced EV’s team title.

But it went beyond that, said state runnerup Brad Crockett.

“Even the guys who weren’t here continued to work with us in the practice room,” he said. “This was a whole team thing.”

The coach:

Hanson became head coach at East Valley two years ago.

He had a second-place state finisher in Arlee, Mont., a fourth-place state team at Wapato, Wash., served four years as assistant at Lakeside High in Nine Mile Falls and one year as head coach at Couer d’Alene.

East Valley’s program was accustomed to success. The Knights had won six previous Frontier League championships, finished as high as second in state and had numerous individual champions.

“It was a dream come true,” he said of the job. “It really felt like home.”

The transfers:

Duncan’s father Robbin is an EV graduate. He moved to the Valley from Richland, he said, to live with his grandparents.

“I wanted to be with them before they passed away,” he explained. “I didn’t know about this team. I got lucky.”

Unfailingly polite, his passion for wrestling was evident in interviews.

He reached the state semifinals only to lose in overtime in a brilliantly wrestled match against eventual champion Brandon Springer of Monroe. He accepted the bitter defeat with grace, roaring back to finish third.

“I came here to win, but I’m not empty-handed,” he said. “I didn’t understand team unity until this team. Everyone cares about everyone else. It’s not an ‘I’ thing. It’s great to have a title for the whole team.”

Gillespie, whose father works for LeMaster and Daniels, moved here this year and made an impact on both the football and wrestling teams.

He hadn’t wrestled in district for Selah last year as a 158 pounder, failing to make weight.

“I thought food was more important than wrestling,” he said earlier this year.

His work in the weight room, as well as his eating habits, added 20 pounds to his frame. He also added second-place finishes at district and regional tournaments and a state berth.

Beeman’s troubled youth left him out of school by his sophomore year and at Rogers as a junior.

Coaches and administrators say he has been a model student in the classroom and on the athletic fields at both high schools the past two years.

“I hadn’t wrestled for two years and it was difficult coming straight into high school,” the all-Frontier football player said.

Like Duncan a district and regional champion, he reached the semifinals before losing his composure following a frustrating one-point loss at the buzzer to eventual champion Chris Babka of W.F. West High in Chehalis.

He was subsequently denied a medal.

“It’s really a shame,” said Hanson. “He was mad at himself. Heck, he’d have been in there for third place. What can anyone do to make him feel worse?”

The returnees:

Junior finalists Justin Walker and Crockett had their own stories on the way to their championship matches.

Walker qualified for state as a freshman but was upset in district last year and stayed home.

“The day after district he gave up soccer to be here,” said Hanson.

Only a title was acceptable. Leading 4-1 in his finale, one throw and roll worth four points to his opponent, Andy Soliman, left Walker one place away and inconsolable.

“It was the same thing as regional,” said Hanson. “He probably outwrestled him 10 of 12 minutes and came up short. He’s just kicking himself.”

Crockett’s appearance in the title match, where he was pinned in the first round, was as improbable as Walker’s was expected.

A 4.0 student who moved here from California in the eighth grade, he took up wrestling at Mountain View Junior High because it was the thing to do. He wrestled junior varsity as a sophomore.

“I set my goal originally to be among the top six in state,” he said. “But I kind of had doubts in my head.”

Coaches kept telling him he was improving and he kept asking when it would happen. By Saturday night Crockett had arrived.

So, too, had state veterans Kevin Woolf and Quinton Chapman. Both were semifinalists and placed for the first time.

EV’s six semifinals appearances gave the team a virtually insurmountable lead after the first day.

Woolf, like his upper weights teammates, lost a toughie by two points but came back to place fourth. Chapman finished fifth.

Only Gillespie, and freshman John Sommer, who won his first match in his first tournament, went unplaced.

“We wanted seven people wrestling on Saturday and we got seven,” said Woolf, the son of Valley educators. “We’re going to win this tournament.”

How right he was. It was a chemistry difficult to duplicate an on Monday, the Knight team was the toast of the school.

“I think the championship really set in when I was walking into school and saw all the contratulatory hands,” said Hanson, “getting to put the trophy up in the office and hearing the buzz of how excited everybody is about it.

“It’s elation.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 5 color photos