Looking to the future

Craig Hanson is looking forward to the Ripple Effect.

Fresh from a third-place finish at the Class 3A Mat Classic XVIII, the East Valley wrestling coach is looking ahead to the 2006-07 season, when he will have three veterans of state championship matches returning in his wrestling room.

For the first time under Hanson and the second time in East Valley history, the Knights had four wrestlers in the championship finals. Tyler Jolley capped an undefeated senior season by scoring a 3-0 decision over Derek Altona of Ferndale in the heavyweight final.

Sophomore Anthony Rivera lost an 8-0 decision to Derek Crouter of Sedro Woolley in the 112-pound final, and junior Bryce Fisher lost a 3-1 decision to the Cubs’ Michael Lomsdalen at 145. Sophomore Clete Hanson, the coach’s son, lost a 10-4 decision to Erich Schmidtke of Aberdeen at 171.

In addition, senior Foster Orton placed fifth at 160.

An injury prevented Jimmy Martin, a junior at 215 pounds from qualifying for the state tournament and was a sure bet to place, Hanson said.

“He would have put us in second place,” the coach said. “The kid he beat at regionals finished third.”

Still, the coach is pleased with his returning state veterans.

“You’d like to have more placers back – maybe six or seven state placers in your lineup,” Hanson laughed, drafting his ideal slate of returning veterans to start a new season. “But having three state finalists really gives your program a boost. We’re pleased with that, and we’re pleased with the leadership that brings as well.”

Having a state finalist in the wrestling room adds to the work level in practice, the coach said.

“Those guys come back in the room next year, and you have immediate leaders right there,” Hanson said. “They immediately take on that role. The guys in practice are following that leadership and they know that these guys are battle tested.

“The other thing that goes with it, whenever a guy in the room has a good day against one of them, they know that they’re going against a state finalist. It transfers.

“It helps to have a state champion (who graduates) because you have guys who were right there with him all season long. But it’s even better when those guys are back there the next year.”

It helps that the Knights have state finalists and state veterans spread out across the weight classifications.

“Absolutely,” Hanson said. “Kids always wrestle in pockets. We’ve got two little guys down there – because we still have Shelby Lawson, who was a state placer (in 2005). We’ve got a medium guy (in Fisher) and a couple big guys in Clete and Jimmy Martin. We get to spread the wealth.”

Jolley’s march to a state championship was not unexpected, the coach said. But the dominating way in which he got there was a surprise.

“I thought that he could win a state title – there was no doubt about that,” he said “His goal was to win a state championship going in, but to go through the season undefeated is another thing. I went back and looked at his match results. There were only about eight total points scored on him that were legitimate, where he didn’t just cut the guy – where the other guy actually scored on him.”

Jolley, who signed a national letter of intent to play football at Eastern Washington before the start of wrestling season, scored 23 pins and recorded a technical fall.

The Knights have had a great deal of success in the 275-pound weight class.

“In the last five years we’ve had three state champions, a runner-up and another placer at heavyweight,” he said. “We’ve got about 180 wins and less than 15 losses at that weight.”

Chris Helm was state runner-up last year at heavyweight for the Knights. Justin Moody won the State 4A heavyweight crown in 2002, a year after Courtney Howard won the title.

For Rivera, the seeds of a state championship were sown in the spring.

“Last year he decided he really wanted to get good,” Hanson said. “He put in a pretty good spring of wrestling. He went to camp and made a good focus on getting better. His confidence just went way up this year. You have to believe that you can get better and he put the work in to make it happen.

“Going into the postseason, we had a lot of talk about whether he wanted to be a 119-pounder or a 112-pounder. He was one of the few kids who was cutting a decent amount of weight. We tried him out at 119, and he decided the kids were just too big. He solidified in his mind that he was a 112-pounder, and once that happened, he got even better.”

Hanson was justifiably proud of his son.

“Clete qualified for state last year, but his confidence really started to soar when he became a starter at middle linebacker in football,” he said. “When he came into wrestling, he looked at wrestling at 160 and 171. Weight wise, it probably would have been better for him to wrestle 160 – that’s more his natural weight. But he told me at the beginning of the year, ‘Dad, I think it’s better for the team for me to wrestle up.’

“He was really unselfish about it. Next year he can come back and stay at 171 and still grow into his body more. He’ll be even tougher.”