Lakeside’s undefeated Dalton Young focused, energized

NINE MILE FALLS – It’s been on his ceiling since eighth grade.

It’s there for Dalton Young to see every night before he closes his eyes and when he awakens in the morning. The Lakeside wrestler wants to win four state championships.

Young, a junior, captured the 132-pound championship last weekend at the Rollie Lane tournament in Nampa, Idaho. In raising his record to 106-0 he was named the lightweight outstanding wrestler for the tourney.

He’s on pace to complete his prep career undefeated. If that happens, he’d become just the second wrestler in the region to do so. Jared Lawrence of Sandpoint finished 133-0 in 1998.

“That’s really not realistic,” Young said about finishing unbeaten. “That’s not that important to me. It’s more important to me to be a four-time state champ. If being undefeated happens, it happens.”

Young claimed a third title at Tri-State last month. If he wins again next year, he would become just the fourth in the 45-year history of the event to win four.

You’d think with all the winning Young has done he’s never experienced losing. But that’s far from the truth. He lost quite a bit before he reached high school and has lost at Fargo, North Dakota – site of the annual national youth Greco-Roman and freestyle tournament in late July.

Suffering losses at tournaments such as Fargo was superb preparation for high school.

“Coming into his freshman year, he put a lot of work that summer traveling around to find tough competition,” Lakeside coach Brad Perry said. “He had closed the gap on kids who had gotten the best of him when he was younger. That was a big turnaround summer for him.”

Suffering losses at the youth level was also good for Young in another way.

“It really keeps me humble knowing there are people out there who are better than me,” he said.

At the same time it prepared him for high school.

“Seeing where I was at with the rest of the country gave me a confidence boost leading into my freshman year,” Young said. “I’d been in big matches so it wasn’t anything new to me.”

Less than a month into his freshman year, Young captured a title at 113 at Tri-State. That was a harbinger – even if freshmen often win at the lowest weights.

Two months later, Young won a state title at the Tacoma Dome – a place he had visited five times previously with his father, David, a volunteer assistant at Lakeside.

Young was ready for the big stage. Still, he was nervous.

“I definitely had nerves,” he said. “I always get nerves. You have to have a healthy dose of fear. Anything can happen on the mat. That’s why we do what we do.”

The highlight of his non-high school career came last summer at Fargo when he took third in Greco at 126. He lost 5-2 in the semifinals to a kid from Illinois. He came back in the match for third to beat a returning Greco national champion 7-4.

His highest placing in freestyle at Fargo came two summers ago when he took fifth.

Fargo will be his final destination this summer.

“It’ll be my last hurrah at Fargo,” he said.

Young goes at full throttle when he wrestles. He is fundamentally sound, athletic and well conditioned.

“I want to be on a constant move,” Young said. “I want to gas kids out in the third period. I want to be relentless.”

He’s faced his toughest competition this season. The rest of the schedule, including postseason, will be against 1A opponents.

That means he’ll go against opponents who largely will avoid engaging with him. They’ll try to wrestle near a mat’s boundaries – so they can get out of bounds quickly to avoid match-ending situations.

“I have to try to make them do things they don’t want to do,” Young said, saying he’s working on strategies to counter defensive opponents. “You’ve got to try to find ways to score, take the match out of the ref’s hands and leave no doubt.”

The mat isn’t the only place Young is at the head of the class. He carries a 4.0 grade-point average and is ranked No. 1 in Lakeside’s junior class.

His dedication in the classroom comes from his parents.

“They instilled it in me at a young age,” Young said.

Young, 26-0 this season, has allowed just one takedown.

“That’s what is special about him,” Perry said. “He doesn’t give up points. He was taken down three times as a freshman and two times last year.”

Perry said Young doesn’t rest on his laurels.

“He’s always striving to get better,” Perry said. “He’s very analytical. He finds his own weaknesses and works hard to eliminate those.”