YOUNG KNIGHTS START STRONG

Enthusiasm is something Craig Hanson has in abundance, especially when there’s good cause for positive thinking. And the East Valley High School wrestling coach is positive he has good cause.

A perennial power in the Greater Spokane League, 2010-’11 was an off-year for the Knights in their first season as a member of the Class 2A Great Northern League.

“We had some kids get in trouble two years ago and we ended up having to dismiss them from the program,” the coach said. “I thought we had put that behind us last year, but I was wrong. Plus, the football team had a long run and we had kids late getting into the wrestling room. When that happens, I think you lose some off your depth. Kids that would have been, say, a No. 2 at a weight decided they’ll just savor the success of the football season and not wrestle.

“We just never had that excitement level we were used to last year. But this year, I could tell from the first day that this group was excited about the season and they’ve been working hard every day.”

The Knights are relatively young, with just four seniors wrestling on the varsity and several freshmen in the starting lineup on a regular basis.

That puts the team’s success heading into the season’s final seven weeks well ahead of schedule. The Knights strung together a series of impressive performances at December tournaments, including the Hanford Winter Cup, where the Knights placed second behind Sunnyside as a team and had nine wrestlers place, including seniors Alex Rockstrom, who won at 132 pounds and Brandon Heide, who won at 195. The next day, five Knights placed at the prestigious Pac Coast tournament at Hudson’s Bay High School in Vancouver, Wash., placing seventh as a team.

“These guys did a great job,” Hanson said. “We had a good Tri-State Tournament (at North Idaho College), not a great Tri-State. We lost a string of really close matches by one or two points late in the first day. We were among the leaders at that point, and if those matches had gone the other way, we would have had nine kids wrestling Saturday morning.

“They had a great tournament at Hanford, we got back on the bus and drove to Vancouver, weighed them in at 8 a.m. the next day and they wrestled really well at Pac Coast.”

Hanson will keep his wrestlers busy in the final month of the regular season. The Knights are at the Cheney Invite today. This week they play host to Lakeside and wrestle at West Valley on back-to-back nights. The following week is even busier. East Valley hosts Deer Park and Lake City Tuesday and Wednesday, then travel to Pullman on Thursday. Friday the EV junior varsity wrestles in the Knights annual Dream Duals tournament, with the varsity in action all day Jan. 14.

“These kids will be busy all week,” Hanson said. “Three duals in three days, plus they’re all here for the Dream Duals Friday, even if it’s only the JV wrestling. The varsity will help with the set-up and that’s a hard-enough workout.”

The plan is to hone his wrestlers to a fine edge for February. The first weekend, Feb. 3-4, is the district tournament at East Valley. A week later is the Northeast 2A Regional at West Valley, with Mat Classic XXIV Feb. 17-18 at the Tacoma Dome.

“I think there’s a real advantage for us being able to sleep in our own beds for the district and regional tournaments,” Hanson said. “First of all, we have great fans here and that always helps.”

Hanson expects to take a healthy number of wrestlers to Tacoma. Currently three Knights are ranked by the Washington Wrestling Report, a website devoted to the sport statewide. Junior Casey Ourada is ranked No. 6 at 120 pounds. Senior Nick Sweeney is ranked No. 7 at 126. Rockstrom, also a senior, is ranked No. 10 at 132.

Hanson said he expects to learn this week about Sweeney’s availability for the remainder of the season. The senior got an MRI of the injured meniscus in his knee last week.

“They’re taking a look at it and we are supposed to hear back,” Hanson said. “It’s an injury he’s been working through and he decided to have it looked at. They could tell us that they want to go in and repair it right away, or that he can go ahead and finish the season and have it fixed after. We took him off the mat last week, so if he gets cleared he could be back for next week.

“Ideally, we want to get him a couple good matches and have him ready for the regional tournament. It’s his senior season and he wants to wrestle.”

 Still, Hanson said he tries to keep in mind that his varsity is young.

“We start four juniors and I’ve started as many as four freshmen in any given match,” Hanson said. “Hard to believe that we’re relatively that young. But we have a good freshman class that won the Mt. Spokane freshman tournament – we haven’t done that in a while. And we have a good middle school program feeding us.”

The East Valley School District closed Mountain View Middle School.

“Mountain View was undefeated in wrestling and I guess they’re going to remain that way since the school closed,” Hanson laughed. “We’ve tried to make up for that by dividing our remaining program into two teams, a Green team and a White team. We divided the wrestlers up to make the teams as balanced as we could and let them both compete.

“It’s hard to lose a program. The numbers are down a little from what they were at when we had both schools because I think some kids figure there aren’t as many opportunities as there were. But I think we’re going to be fine.”