No. 3 Warriors take fourth at Lander Invitational

WORLAND - As they enter the final stretch of the regular season the Worland Warriors wrestling team has gotten better and better with each week. If things continue on this upward trajectory the Warriors will be peaking right around the postseason.

Last weekend Worland wrestled in the Lander Invitational, placing fourth as a team and having six wrestlers podium. Junior 113-pound Domanic Hartley took first in his weight class and did so in dominant fashion, getting a pin in all four matches.

At 132 pounds, junior Daniel Weyrich took second losing in sudden victory in the championship match to Star Valley's Grayson Hicks. Worland's 182-pound senior Isaac Goncalves also took second, losing to Powell's Bo Dearcorn.

The other Warrior placers at the Invitational were 126-pound Adam Bankert, third; 120-pound Anthony Martinez, sixth; and 138-pound Tristen Lungren, fourth.

"I thought we wrestled really, really well," said WHS wrestling coach Josh Garcia about his team's performance in Lander. "From top to bottom, both levels, we had several JV guys win it and our varsity guys are coming along real nice. We've still got some work to do, for sure, but we had some kids that placed and others that didn't. That's been part of our motivation for this week. Last year, Adam Bankert didn't place in Lander but he ended up making the state finals. We like to look at Lander as a 3A State preview but it's not the end all be all. Our motivation is to keep working hard and keep hammering it out."

Before heading to Lander last weekend the Warriors were going to wrestle the Cody Broncs in a home dual but a scheduling mix-up resulted in the dual being canceled. Rather than sulk about a canceled match the Warriors went back to work and came out ready to go for the Invitational.

"There are things that we can't necessarily control, an official might blow a call or a kid might do something unexpected, but we're always expecting curve balls. Our philosophy is what are you going to do with it? Are you going to roll over and die? Or will you come back and battle. I was really excited for our kids because they bounced back and got after it," said Garcia.

One of those Warriors who got things rolling for Worland was the senior 138-pound Lungren. In his first match of the tournament, Lungren was matched up against Star Valley's freshman Harrison Hoopes, 3A's third-ranked 138-pounder. Star Valley has all ways been a mental hurdle for most 3A wrestlers but as Lungren's teammates saw him win by a 10-6 decision, it energized the whole team.

"Tristen Lungren was one of those kids that got after it. Everyone is really timid when it comes to Star Valley and he draws a seeded Star Valley kid in the first round. Tristen got an armbar on him and the Star Valley kid walked off the mat crying. Our kids feed off that and when they see one of their own take it to Star Valley they begin to believe that they can do it too.

"We had a young sophomore Anthony Martinez that made the semifinals. He's been wrestling JV for us all year and all the sudden he's on the varsity side and wrestling in the semifinals. Isaac Goncalves made the finals as well, I'm excited for where we're at but I'm definitely not satisfied," said Garcia.

Star Valley wrestling is 3A's current three-time defending state champion and holds the most state titles, out of all classes, in state history with 21. Having that kind of program lore tends to intimidate opposing wrestlers, yet, the mindset Lungren showed going against his Braves opponent is exactly what Garcia is looking for.

"We talked about Tristen's match against Star Valley before the start of practice on Monday. We want that mentality of not caring where the guy is from, whether they be from Star Valley, Powell or Douglas. We train just as hard and the stuff we're learning works against those kids, they buy into that and Tristen Lungren did a real nice job of proving that," said Garcia.

Worland heads to Thermopolis today for the Bobcat Quad duals at Hot Springs County High School, in which they are set to wrestle the Douglas Bearcats at 5 p.m.

The Warriors-Bearcats is a dual against two of 3A's top-five ranked two teams, as Worland is ranked No.3 and Douglas No. 5, according to wyowrestling.com.

"We're just looking for our guys to keep challenging themselves and face adversity. We're going to see some big matches in that Douglas dual. We want to keep gaining that confidence, we're in better shape than a lot of kids right now and can wrestle with anyone," said Garcia.

Closing out the weekend Worland is in Riverton Friday and Saturday for the Ron Thon tournament. The Ron Thon is Wyoming's largest wrestling tournament of the regular season, as nearly every wrestling team in the state is in Riverton to see just exactly who are the best wrestlers in the Equality State.

This year all but five Wyoming wrestling teams will be in Riverton and while there is plenty of excitement surrounding the Ron Thon, Garcia wants his team to remain focused on doing their job. Success this weekend is the obvious goal but Garcia doesn't want his team to lose sight of the bigger goal, those being the conference and state tournaments in February.

"As a team and the team race, everyone has their individual job. If we can take care of things individually then good things are going to happen for the team. We want to keep the distractions to a minimum, make sure we're doing well in school, we don't want any distractions going into the later part of the season.

"A lot of coaches want to hang their hat on one state placer or one state champion, my philosophy is I don't want to hang my season on just one guy. I want five or six in the finals and 10-plus state placers," said Garcia.