Nov. 29, 2007: Tooele-Transcript Bulletin

Cowboy Wrestling Team Returns 7 State Qualifiers
by Mark Watson

Tooele County wrestling teams are in good hands with a pair of experienced mentors leading the squads. Tooele High has Gary Coffman and Grantsville High has Eugene Evans.

The two coaches have worked together coaching young wrestlers throughout the county for several years. Evans is in his third year as the head coach at Grantsville High, but has been coaching youth wrestling for 17 years. The head coach is assisted by his brother Clarence, Mark Vickers and Sean Smith.

Grantsville wrestlers have been working hard for the past three weeks as they prepare for the season. The Cowboys begin competition this weekend with a big tournament in Evanston.

"It's three tourneys in one at Evanston with tournaments for the freshmen, junior varsity and varsity," Evans said. "The kids have worked really hard and I'm proud of their efforts. They're good young men."

Grantsville returns 14 wrestlers from last year's squad and has 25 wrestlers on the team ranging from freshmen to seniors. "We're still a very young team with only four seniors. We have seven wrestlers returning who qualified for state last year," the coach said.

Those state-qualifying wrestlers include Daryl James who wrestled at 119 last year and will wrestle at 125 this year. Others who qualified for state last year include Tyler Gregory at 140, Trevor Anderson at 145, Skyler Phelps at 160, Seith Kreiser at 171, Ty Hamatake at 189 and Jake Templeton at 215.

The coach said the goal is to continue to improve as the season progresses and for these seven wrestlers to finish at the top when the state wrestling championships roll around in February. Region 11 includes some of the top 3A wrestling teams in Logan, Bear River and Morgan.

Grantsville will travel to West Wendover next weekend and host the Cowboy Duals on Dec. 14-15.