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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Rams sharpening moves with eyes on postseason


Riverside High wrestler Ryan Desroches competes in an Idaho match last season. He was a state champion last year and figures he can get better.
Joe Everson Correspondent

Every day in the Riverside High School wrestling room, senior Ronnie Stump works out alongside three teammates who brought home medals from last season’s Washington 2A Mat Classic, including state champion Ryan Desroches.

So it’s no wonder that Stump, himself a state tournament veteran, is a self-proclaimed “man on a mission” this year, determined to bring home a prize of his own a couple months down the road. Likewise, the Rams, who barely missed finishing in the top 10 last February, are looking ahead to bigger things.

“We’ve got a lot of good young guys,” said coach Randy Miller, “and we’ve had a good start. I look at the matches up until January as a chance to see what we’ve got. This year’s team has lots of experience, but we’ve also got lots of new guys.”

The Rams will be putting four sophomores and three freshmen on the mat, although one of the sophomores is 112-pounder Ryan Major, who finished eighth at state, wrestling at 103. Senior Tyler Johnson, sixth at 189, is Riverside’s third returning state placer, while sophomore Jacob Resroches and Stump also made it to Tacoma.

“I look at everything I’ve done before as practice for my senior year,” said Stump, “and since I didn’t place last year, I see it as an opportunity to get better. Last year in Tacoma, I went in a little light (he wrestled at 171 but weighed only 160), but this year I’m more solid.

“Since then, I’ve gone to camps, I lift, I try every day to get better. It’s my last year, so there’s no reason not to give it my best.”

The 2A Great Northern League has a drastically different look this year, having added three former Greater Spokane League schools, Clarkston, Cheney and West Valley. But the GNL also lost wrestling powerhouse Lakeside to the Northeast A League, a development with which Miller and most of his wrestlers are not entirely pleased.

“It’s kind of a bummer,” said the coach. “We always looked forward to that competition. But the three GSL schools will all be tough opponents, and Deer Park will be a force.

“The good thing for us, having so many state veterans back, is that they bring that hard competitive edge to the practice room. They’ve been exposed to the physical and mental part of what it takes to be successful, and the younger kids when they see that figure those guys must have done something right to get there.”

Junior Ryan Desroches, despite his championship at 160 last season, still figures he can get better.

“My goal is to keep improving and always strive to be the best. I have to look at it like there’s always someone who can beat me out there. Now that I’ve got the spotlight on me, I need to work twice as hard.

“I also need to help the young guys believe that they can win even if they are young. My job as a veteran is to build the other guys up and earn their respect, not to make myself look too big.”

His thoughts on the expanded GNL?

“I’m upset to lose the competition with Lakeside, because that really pushed us to work hard. But there are more guys out there now that I wouldn’t have seen before, so I can’t worry about Lakeside.”

The Rams finished first at the Ephrata Invitational last Saturday, with six individual titles, after a second-place finish a week earlier in the Deer Park Invitational. They’ve also wrestled Idaho 5A powers Coeur d’Alene and Sandpoint.