ARLEE WRESTLING PREVIEW: Bringing experience

Perhaps two of the most important advantages a high school

wrestling team can have against an opponent is experience and

commitment.

Having a combination of talent and the desire to win is

potentially disastrous for foes hoping to hang with their

competition. This explains why one of Lake County's top wrestling

teams this season will be the Arlee Warriors.

Perhaps two of the most important advantages a high school wrestling team can have against an opponent is experience and commitment.

Having a combination of talent and the desire to win is potentially disastrous for foes hoping to hang with their competition. This explains why one of Lake County's top wrestling teams this season will be the Arlee Warriors.

"Age is one of our strengths," head coach Ken Hill said. "We have five seniors who have a lot of experience. We've also got a really good work ethic. In the weight room, they never complain and are always going 100 m.p.h."

The speed Hill refers to is obviously a figure of speech, but may be just as difficult to overcome for Warrior opponents, as it has been over the first few encounters of the season.

The senior-laden team is talented, but continues to make strides practice after practice, meet after meet. The ceiling for these young men seems to keep getting higher, but with what Hill has seen so far, they keep rising with it.

"We're putting new stuff into the wrestling room that I've seen a day or two later on the mat," Hill said. "They're doing the moves."

Another problem the Warriors shouldn't have this season is motivation. Hill continues to light a fire under his team, reminding them that if they take care of each meet, the road in the postseason will be an easier one to maneuver.

"We need to wrestle solid every weekend," Hill said. "Every match is important with seeding in divisionals and we talk about that. If you go in unseeded, you take the chance of being on the same side of the draw as tougher kids. If we win, we'll meet the criteria to be seeded."

Thus far, Arlee has been able to take care of business, finding success match after match, all the while waiting for their full roster to take shape. Once it does, with studs like Leif Rova ("lots of experience," according to Hill) and Zach Tameler ("really tough"), wrestling alongside Clayton Trimble and Cody North, both of whom have established themselves as top grapplers in the area, Arlee will have a very successful year.

While opponents spend the year on pins and needles at the prospect of facing the Warriors, Arlee will just be concerned about the pins.