Dec. 4, 2004: The Park Record

Pinning Down a New Season
by Adia Waldburger

In wrestling, a match can be decided in six seconds. Building a large program sometimes takes a little longer.
Currently, the Park City High School wrestling team is experiencing some trouble receiving athletes, so for now, the team will have to settle for quality over quantity.

This past week, the Miners headed to the valley for a tournament hosted by Granger High School. The tournament also included East and Woods Cross high schools.

The Miners were prepared, but due to lack of numbers, had to forfeit in some weight classes. This ultimately kept them from beating any of the other teams. Park City forfeited four matches, each worth 6 points. They lost to Granger by only 12 points, and to Woods Cross by 10 points.

"If we had those positions filled, we could have won. It's tough when you have 18 points counting against your team, " said head coach Chris Spealler.

Freshman Andy Hansen attempts to pin down his East High School opponent during a tournament hosted by Granger High School.

Individually, Park City turned in many winning performances. The team was led by senior co-captain Nick Berry, who wrestles in the heavyweight (up to 265 pounds) class. Berry won all three of his matches, including his final match against a larger East opponent, where Berry had to use his mental skills to win the match.

"Nick is one of the more experienced kids out there. He's wrestled enough to know what he has to do," said Spealler.

Spealler was also pleased with the performance by newcomer Andy Hansen, who recently moved to the Park City area from Fargo, ND. Nicknamed "Fargo" by his teammates, the freshman 130-weight class competitor wrestled his way to three winning matches as well.

"He's wrestled before. It was a big help having a guy like that on the team," said Spealler.

The Miners have a lot of freshmen on the team who performed well.

"We've actually got quite a few freshmen doing awesome. In a couple years, if we fill our weight classes, we could compete with a lot of teams around us," said Spealler.

Spealler was also impressed with the overall performance of his team.

"The whole team wrestled awesome. We were really impressed with all of them."

He highlighted senior co-captain James Pearson, who won a difficult match against his Granger opponent in the 125-weight class, and said Wes Uribe did well in the 135-weight class.

Spealler, along with assistant coach Eric O'Connor, ha started a developmental wrestling program in Park City called Young Guns to try and remedy the shortage of wrestlers at the high school level. The program is for youth ages five through 13 years of age who are interested in trying the sport of wrestling. Anyone interested in the program may contact Spealler at 640-5380.

The Miners will be in action again on Friday at 5 p.m., when they travel to Union for a Region 10 dual meet.