Musings and Ramblings: Vikings Grapplers Lace 'Em Up for 2009-10 Prep Wrestling Season

With the opening dual meet at home against Freedom occurring this week, the Avery High School wrestling team looks to add to its impressive total through the years of conference champions as well as regional and state tournament appearances.

Avery wrestling has a rich and storied tradition. Former Avery standout Stacey Clark leads his troops into hand-to-hand combat again this season, and I had an opportunity this week to visit practice and discuss the upcoming season with the coach.

Question: Your team has been working hard for the past couple of weeks preparing for the upcoming season. How many returning wrestlers do you have coming back this season?

Coach Clark: We have seven or eight wrestlers returning this season. Some of the wrestlers who also play football have taken a little time off this week before transitioning into wrestling season, and a number of them are also helping families particularly in the Christmas tree industry. It puts us in a small bind for the first week of the season, but the subsequent matches should be fine and we’ll be better off.

Question: Brock Yackey was a state qualifier who has performed well and has continued to improve through his prep career. Will he be someone who look to in providing leadership for the team, and are there additional wrestlers who you see stepping up to provide leadership to the club?

Coach Clark: Brock is probably our most experienced wrestler, being the only wrestler to make it to the state tournament last season. He will definitely be one of our leaders this year. Nick Malgadey is back with us this year and seems to have stepped up his level of commitment both on and off of the mat.

Jacob McKinney has also looked good in practice so far. He’ll be wrestling at 112 pounds here in a week or two, and I believe he has opportunity for success in that weight class. He spent last year paying his dues behind Brock and Nick, and with those guys bumping up in weight
class he will have a greater opportunity.

Lucas Lecka probably has the most experience of our upper weights. He’ll be joining us soon, and we look forward to him at least qualifying for regionals and possibly looking beyond that.

Question: Speaking of upper weights, In recent history the team has had difficulty fielding consistent wrestlers in the upper weight classes like the 189, 215, and heavyweight classes. Is that a recurring issue this season, and with that in mind, will your lighter classes again be an area of strength with your club this year?

Coach Clark: Our numbers are still higher in the lower weight classes. The majority of the kids in the high school are between 125 and 160 pounds. There are exceptions both ways and we’ve tried to get those kids out to tryout for the team. We look to be a little stronger in numbers this year in the upper weight classes as we have been. We have three of our football players out wrestling already and hope to have three or four more who we hope will come join us. Right now we’re looking to fill gaps in the 160-pound to heavyweight class range.

Question: What does it appear will be the character or personality of the team this year based on the short time the group has been together? What strengths do you anticipate this team displaying this season, and are there any areas which the group will need to improve upon?

Coach Clark: We’re still young as a team. The upperclassmen we do have do not have a lot of experience. I like the fact that the kids that we have are working hard and will do whatever you ask of them. The experience will come, and it may come at a hefty price in the early going.

We’re going to see plenty of matches and plenty of good competition this year. We’ll be at some matches where we’ll be quite honest with the team and explain to them that we’re “seeing the world” and what’s out there, but we’ve also scheduled matches that we feel our guys can compete in and have an opportunity to win. At that point it’s up to the kids to determine how hard they want it and how hard they want to work.

Question: Conference matches and postseason tournaments are always crucial, but are there any duals or tournaments during the season that you feel are important in shaping the team and gaining experience? Are there tournaments that you specifically schedule because of past experiences there or personal preference?

Coach Clark: Ashe County is always a good early tournament. It’s a good measuring stick for some of our younger guys. We have scheduled a lot of individual tournaments this year rather than the dual team tournaments. We’re trying to promote the success of our individual wrestlers who are capable of doing a little better than we can as a team. We want to put kids like Brock, Nick, Lucas and others who have the opportunity to win some matches in positions where they can see some success, as well as get a good confidence boost through the month of December to hold our heads high going into the conference season.

Question: Coach Tom Puckett again brings his experience and leadership to help you on this year’s coaching staff. How do you work together to get the team ready from a practice-to-practice and a match-to-match basis?

Coach Clark: A lot of what we do depends on the individual wrestlers. We run a team practice, we try to base as much as we can on the individual. Coach Puckett and I will trade off, as one of us will run the practice while the other will walk around and grab individuals to work on their specific needs.

We have a huge difference in experience levels from our juniors to some of our guys who have never wrestled before, and you’re not teaching the same moves to the same kids. We go over the basics with everybody, but the more experienced wrestlers will work on the finer points of techniques than those who are new and don’t know a lot at this point.

This season we’re also thrilled to welcome Coach John Harkey to our coaching staff. Coach Harkey is a new biology teacher at the school and will serve as one of our assistant coaches. He weighs about what the kids weigh and can get in there and wrestle with them. He’s been really good in instructing the lighter weights. He was a state qualifier and state placer when he wrestled at West Lincoln High School. He wrestled at the high school national tournament and also wrestled at Appalachian State University for Coach John Mark Bentley, so he knows his wrestling.

Best of luck to the Avery wrestling team as it embarks on the 2009-10 high school wrestling season beginning this week’s dual match against Freedom as well as the Indian Duals on Wednesday, November 25^th at Saint Stephen’s High School in Hickory.