Warriors show progress on the mat as they prepare for Miles City tournament

WORLAND - The Worland Warriors wrestling team got 2019 started off on the right foot as they took first in the silver bracket of the Thoman Soda Ash Memorial dual tournament last weekend in Green River at Green River High School.

Coming off the Christmas break WHS wrestling coach Josh Garcia was cautiously excited for his team to get back to competing. The way things worked out this year with wrestlers having to go on family vacations during the break, Garcia wasn't able to have his team practice at full strength. But even though not every wrestler was in the training room, the Warriors still made the most of their practice time.

"From a coaching standpoint I was really excited because you never know what you're going to get coming off break," said Garcia. "It's tough during the break because there are family vacations planned and when talking it over as a staff, I decided that we're going to work with the kids. If they can make three out of the five [practices] I'll work with them, normally, I wouldn't take them but this year the way the schedule was, this was the best way.

"I was pleased with the way we wrestled and Green River is a tough tournament. Green River is probably one of the top schools in 4A and that's who we started the tournament against."

The Warriors did start the dual tournament off with a 66-15 loss to Green River, but afterward, they rebounded with wins over Cokeville (43-36) and Mountain View (48-36). However, two more losses to 4A Evanston 48-25 and Granger High School 42-36, a 6A school from Granger, Utah, landed Worland in the silver bracket.

In the silver bracket, the Warriors beat Lyman 54-29 to grab the top spot. Along with the team accomplishment of winning the silver bracket, Worland had two wrestlers 113-pound Domanic Hartley and 132-pound Daniel Weyrich, log an impressive 6-1 record for the tournament.

The heart and effort each Warrior wrestler showed in Green River, against some of the best talent in Wyoming and Utah, is exactly what Garcia wanted to see coming off a long layoff. Sure, the weekend didn't end with as many wins as they would have liked, but having a roster full of wrestlers who aren't going to back down from the challenge is a good consolation.

"Our kids aren't backing down from that high-caliber competition, that's what we preach in our wrestling room and in our program. On paper, we necessarily don't look that great because we're battling tough competition like nationally ranked kids, the 4A teams or 5A teams from other states.

"When you're wrestling that high of caliber wrestlers, our kids are doing a great job of getting out there and sticking to the basic style of wrestling," said Garcia. "Some are successful and others didn't win their matches but it's important – as the season progresses, even if we don't win those matches – to get those takedowns or get off bottom, that's success for us. Just the effort that our kids are giving this season, I take my hat off to them. There's no contentment from these kids, they want to get better every day in practice."

This week prepares for another tough meet as they head to Miles City, Montana for the Miles City Invitational. The tournament, which is a standard individual bracket tournament, will have some of the best teams from Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota competing.

The goal for Worland this weekend is to maintain their competitive fire while also getting as many wrestlers to the podium as they can.

"We want each kid to wrestle hard and battle every single match. For me, I think one of the worst things we could do is come out flat and not be prepared to wrestle. It's an individual bracketed tournament and we want to get as many kids as we can to place," said Garcia.