“I just want to see development in the areas we’ve been working on both technically and psychologically,” said Head Coach Don Garriott coming into Friday’s dual meet against West Hills and Saturday’s Santa Ana tournament.
Garriott is anticipating the first home dual meet and he is planning on using his first starters to smash the opposition and kick off the home dual season.
However, he has a different perspective for the tournament. “That’s all the same every time. That’s just practice to get us ready for regional and state.”
Coming into this weekend’s matches, this year’s wrestling team is unscathed with a 5-0 record. “We have a great core of guys wresting this year. We had the majority of our team last year as freshmen,” Garriott said.
Most people may only see the physical efforts of the team, but Garriott is also grateful they took care of things off the mat as well. “They did all they had to do in classes and stuff so they are all eligible this year.”
The team wrestled West Hills this past Friday at the dual meet and will use a different rotation of wrestlers on Friday, as some haven’t wrestled at a dual meet before and were given the experience.
Wrestlers to look out for this weekend are Dustin Kirk, Anotio McKee, Keanu Tom and Robert Chism as they all won their weight classes, and Dylan Clarke and Max Kumashiro who entered the finals.
“I definitely think returning guys set the tone [because] they’ve been here, they already know what to except, things like that. Nothing phases them. The competition in college, every match is tough [and] they’re used to that already.”
Ability wise, Garriott thinks there’s nobody that can touch Keanu Tom as he went 4-0 in the last tournament, but [Garriott] thinks he needs to work on the mental aspect of it. He feels lately he’s doing a better job of doing that.
“There’s one guy I haven’t faced. He’s from Santa Ana, I don’t know his name but that’s the only guy I haven’t faced that might give me a match, so I’m looking forward to that one,” Keanu Tom said.
Despite being labeled untouchable, Tom still feels he needs to work on his top game because he feels he is taking people down and letting them up. “I’ve wrestled everyone else that’s pretty good from all the other schools so, I don’t know, I think I should win state this year.”
The team is mainly focusing on improving their small mistakes from the tournament as they had some trouble scoring off the tie ups. “A lot of times we are tieing guys up or getting tied up and we are not attacking from there,” Garriott said.
Top-ranked 133-pounder Dustin Kirk is competing both days and is looking forward to seeing the rest of the state’s competition that he hasn’t faced. He feels that right now there is no threat between him and a state tittle.
“I’ve been working on everything I need to. I kind of messed up the ligaments on the back of my right knee but as time [passes] I’m just going to try to heal that. [That’s] my only problem right now,” Kirk said.
He also said there shouldn’t be any issue with medical clearance since it’s not severe, but as a wrestler that likes to use a wrestling technique known as “leg riding”
He is going to try other techniques. “I’m going to try to avoid leg riding just for the sake of my knee.”
Coach Garriot feels that the mix of experience and strong, new wrestlers will make this a good team.
He said, “Everyone seemed to kind of gel together and the team kind of got an edgy vibe to it, as long as we can control that and they can use it in competition.”
