Dec. 18, 2005: Deseret Morning News

Mountain Crest Looks Like the Team to Beat
by Michael Black

BOUNTIFUL— At the Viewmont Invitational wrestling tournament Saturday, Mountain Crest sent a message to its competitors —the Mustangs are the team to beat in 4A.

"I thought we would have a pretty good team," said coach Davie Swensen. "We have a lot of seniors and a great group of kids. It took us until this tournament to really come together, but I think we showed what we can do."

Mountain Crest won the team title, edging Box Elder 241.5 to 227. Host Viewmont finished third with at 209.5, with a drastic drop-off to fourth-place Evanston (127.5) and fifth-place Clearfield (120.5). And three Mustangs were individual champions — Jarrett Morrill (103 pounds), Phillip Rutledge (160) and Kyle Tolman (171).

All of which validated Mountain Crest's No. 1 ranking.

"I think we're doing great," Tolman said. "We knew we had it in us. . . . We expect nothing less than a state championship."

And were they sending a message to No. 2-ranked Box Elder? "For sure," he said.

If the Mustangs do get a team championship, it will be because of the whole team concept that everyone exhibits on the squad. Nobody exemplifies that better than Rutledge.

"Phil was a state champion at 171 pounds for us last year," said Swensen, "but we wanted to get Kyle (Tolman) a chance to wrestle varsity for us so Phil agreed to cut weight and wrestle at 160 pounds. I don't know too many kids that would make that sacrifice for the team. It may have cost him a shot at the all-star (team), but I hope not. It was a pretty selfless act that showed everyone his commitment to the team and that type of leadership rubs off on everybody. The team really looks up to him."

Rutledge said the drop in weight was not that big of a deal to him and that he had already dropped most of it during football. He even thought it would probably help him in the long run because of his strength, but that even if it hurt him, it would be worth it to be on a team like this one.

"It is awesome," he said. "We could have as many as eight state champions. It makes it fun. It is a lot more fun to have everyone around and competing with you. It also helps to have such good partners around in practice. We just need to continue working hard all the time. It really doesn't matter what we say. We just need to go out and work hard and show everyone how it is done."

There were other teams and individuals that had a great tournament, and no one wrestler had a better two days than Viewmont's Ryan Larsen. He entered the competition with a disappointing 2-5 record, but left as the 135-pound champion with four great victories along the way.

"I had mental block, I think," said Larsen of why he had struggled before this tournament. "It took three years to get rid of it."

Another reason Larsen gave for the win was his younger brother, Nate, a 103-pound sophomore for the Vikings. "I wasn't about to let my brother get one and not me," Ryan Larsen said. (Nate Larson lost in the finals to Mountain Crest's Morrill.) "It is not really a rivalry, more like encouragement."

While Larsen's victory was both inspiring and unexpected, several others were not that surprising. Other individual winners were: Marc Maughan, Spanish Fork; Matt Brown, Cyprus; Spencer Smoot, Viewmont; Tyler Rackham, Box Elder; Cody Barton, Olympus; Spencer Evans, Davis; David Wiser, Viewmont; Eric McAllister, Hillcrest; Rhett Robinson, Box Elder; Kris Mortensen, Viewmont.