Gonzaga Prep wrestler consistent at 103
Over the course of a high school wrestler’s career, one thing you can usually count on is that unless he starts as a heavyweight, he’ll move up in weight class at least once over his four years.
David Hall at Gonzaga Prep is an exception. The senior has wrestled at 103 pounds since he walked in the doors at Prep.
“His freshman year he weighed maybe 90 pounds, maybe less,” said Gonzaga Prep coach Danny Pearson. “His sophomore season he probably weighed 95. Then he finally grew his junior year to where he was actually over 103, but he loses pounds. That’s the main reason he’s been able to stay there.”
“People I wrestled against one or two years ago, I don’t wrestle against anymore because they’ve all gone up (in weight class) and I’ve been staying in the same weight class,” Hall said. “I’ve wrestled a lot of different people and it’s good. I’ve got to see a lot of different types of wrestling. One disappointing aspect of it is if I want to wrestle someone again, or have a grudge match, they’ve moved up. It has helped wrestling the same weight because I don’t have to change the way I wrestle.”
Hall has steadily improved over his career at Prep at the 103-pound class, finishing fifth in the 4A state tournament last year.
“When I got there, I was pretty nervous,” Hall said. “The quality of the wrestling was really high. Seeing everyone wrestle and wrestling the best people in the state you learn a lot of different things, different types of wrestling you wouldn’t otherwise. You learn from the matches and take what you did wrong in those matches.”
Hall has been a quick learner, as he is unbeaten in his dual matches this season, and finished an impressive fourth in the Tri-State Tournament in December.
“I know he had hoped to do better than that, but making the semifinals at Tri-State in itself is pretty noteworthy,” said Pearson. “He’s planning on getting back to the state tournament.”
“I feel I started off pretty well up to this point,” Hall said. “One thing I do need to work on is maintaining my weight better, so I don’t have to drop a lot of weight before a match. It helps me strength wise, energy wise and confidence wise to keep my weight.”
While keeping weight has only been a recent issue for Hall, maintaining technique on the mat has been an ongoing process for the Prep senior.
“I really wanted to improve on wrestling on my feet,” Hall said. “If I could take anyone down and stay on my feet, that’s a really big part of wrestling. It really helps everything out. If you can take anyone down and score, it wins a match. Technique wise I work a lot on body position, movement with my feet, and penetration on your shot, a lot of the basic things. If you do those basic things well, you’ll really go far.”
“He needs to work on some little things, some minor things,” said Pearson. “One of the problems that he has is that we don’t have anybody in our practices that is competition for him at his weight. In that weight around the league and in the district, there’s a lot of tough competition, kids that will go to state. He saw a lot of tough competition in the Tri State meet. He has to work on his technique for those tough matches like he saw. We want him to be wrestling the right way.”
Hall played soccer early in his career at Prep, but sat out last season. He may be heading back to the pitch this spring though, as it added to his wrestling ability.
“I wanted to focus a lot more on wrestling I guess and lifting weights,” said Hall. “I’m thinking about playing again this year though. It helps a lot with my quickness and agility. Another thing it helps me with is conditioning.”
For now though, Hall is focused squarely on getting another shot at the state title in February.
“I’m really going to have to focus and go back to the basic techniques and get away from some of my bad habits,” said Hall. “Sloppy wrestling, things that I can get away with certain people, I won’t be able to get away with at state. I have to get back to fundamentals.”