Sharing lessons learned

Justin Fiman was emotionally torn coming into his senior season as a West Valley High wrestler.

On one hand, he was coming off a highly successful junior season that saw him earn an eighth-place trophy from the state Class 2A tournament – his first trip to compete at Mat Classic.

On the other hand, he was apprehensive about the upcoming season. His closest friends from a year ago had graduated and he didn’t know many of the young wrestlers coming into the program.

“It felt strange looking ahead to this year,” he said. “But I knew I was going to have to be a leader and set the example for the young guys.”

Fiman has done just that for a small, scrappy West Valley program fighting to recapture some of its former luster.

“We’ve been struggling, but better days are ahead,” Fiman said. “We have a group of guys who are capable of getting to the state meet this year, and I keep hearing good things about the numbers and the quality of wrestlers at the middle school.”

Fiman is confident that several of his teammates can string together the kind of postseason necessary to reach the state tournament – even in a loaded Great Northern League, where three teams, Deer Park, Riverside and Clarkston, hold down the top three spots in the most recent state rankings according to the Washington Wrestling Report Web site.

“It’s not going to be easy,” he said. “We’re going to take our lumps for a while. But if we concentrate on getting better every time out, we can get there.”

The same was true a year ago. Three wrestlers from the GNL placed at Fiman’s weight at state and the state champion, Kellen Hopkins of East Valley-Yakima, was the regional champion.

Fiman had a running rivalry with Clarkston’s Matt Powell a year ago. Powell placed sixth at 130 pounds at state, two slots ahead of Fiman.

“He beat me by a point every time,” he said. “Every match was a battle. He’s a year younger than I am and he’s just a good, young wrestler. At this point I’m not sure if we’re going to wrestle the same weight class again this year or not.”

In the latest state rankings, both top-ranked Powell and Fiman are ranked at 135 pounds, although the Eagle wrestler competes one classification under that weight. Riverside’s Mike Jones is state ranked at 130.

“Quinn Gannon is really coming on and I think he has a great chance of getting to state and he’s just a sophomore,” Fiman said. “He comes from a big, wrestling family and I know he’s going to get there a couple times before he’s done.

“We’re going to get Tim Pring back soon and he was a state-caliber wrestler for us as a freshman and a sophomore and I think he could have been there with us last year if he’d wrestled.”

For those who do get the chance to wrestle at state, he said, he has just one piece of hard-won advice: Don’t get caught up in the pomp and circumstance of the state meet; focus on wrestling your match and put everything else out of your mind.

Fiman learned that lesson the hard way.

The spectacle of the state meet, where the floor of the Tacoma Dome is covered wall-to-wall with wrestling mats while each state tournament is conducted side-by-side, overwhelmed him a bit, he admitted.

“I walked in and I think the whole atmosphere got to me,” he said. “It’s awe-inspiring to walk in there and see it all. I got caught up in everything that was going on and forgot to focus in on my own match.

“After that match I got mad at myself and decided that I was going to go out and wrestle the way I know how.”

Fiman lost his opening-round match to Mount Baker’s Colten Steagall by a technical fall. But he regrouped and worked his way back to earn a rematch for the seventh and eighth place trophy.

“That time it was a totally different match,” Fiman said. “He still beat me by two points (7-5), but it was a different match and I had my chances to win it.”

Despite feeling a bit rundown this week, Fiman has performed well in two early tournaments, placing fifth against predominantly Class 4A competition at the Inland Empire Classic at Central Valley. Last weekend he reached the finals of the Sundome Mat Classic in Yakima, losing to Brandon Yeik of Olympia, 11-2.

“It would have been nice to wrestle at Tri-State, but we’re just not big enough to be able to do that,” he said. “Wrestling at Yakima we had the chance to go against a lot of teams our own size. We got the chance to see where we are against schools our own size and I think it was really good for us.

“I’m pleased with the way I’m wrestling right now. But I have to get better. We all do.”