Bear River wrestlers have pinned down a great season and one of them might be taking it all the way to state.
Increased talent and new techniques have Bruins wrestlers showing strong at tournaments this winter. They are now getting ready for league matches around Nevada and Placer Counties.
Skylar Allen, a junior wrestler talked about being on the wrestling team.
“It’s great,” he said. “There’s a lot of tournaments and a lot of practice. It’s very demanding and it takes a lot of your time. You have to wake up early and it sucks. You have to manage your weight. Practice is more demanding than any other sport and tournaments take all day.”
Allen then explained about wrestling on a more individual level.
“Well, personally, it’s been hard because I’m not used to how tough the practices are and how everyone’s done wrestling longer, which makes them better,” he said.
Josh Miller, a freshman wrestler, talked about what the wrestling team focuses on.
“Right now we’re mostly focused on technique and winning and getting ready to face each other and/or other teams,” Miller said.
Miller also talked about how it is wrestling as a freshman.
“I like wrestling,” he said. “I’m a freshman so there’s really nothing to say about it. It’s challenging as a freshman. Your wrestling people in higher grades and they have more experience in high school wrestling, which is way different than middle school wrestling.”
Charlie Kirks said that the wrestling team is doing great this season.
“Our team is doing really strong right now,” Kirks said. “We’re about to do duals. Practice is really hard, but it helps you at tournaments and duals. I’m the lightest weight. There’s nothing really big about that but the lightest weight is 106 and I’m actually 98 lbs, so that’s pretty nice.”
Kirks also discussed how wrestling has helped him grow in experience and stay in shape and driven.
“This is my second year wrestling,” he said. “It’s really fun. It’s really motivating and helps you stay fit. Practices are 4 p.m.-6:30 p.m. at Bear River. The coaches are pretty good; actually the coaches are great. This year has been really different than last year and it’s helped me grow.”
Wrestling Coach Jeff Danieli talked about how this wrestling season has been.
“So far so good,” he said. “We just had our first two league tournaments and we won them both, so that’s good.”
Coach Danieli then highlighted some of the biggest obstacles the team has run into this season.
“The wrestlers are all learning a new technique this year, a technique they’ve never dealt with before in the past,” he said. “It’s like learning to ride a bicycle a different way.”
The wrestling coach was enthusiastic about the team’s prospects.
“I think we have better talent in the room then we’ve had the last couple seasons,” said Coach Danieli. “The cardio is way better than it’s ever been and we have a lot of hopefuls to move on into the post-season.”
Coach Danieli shared his hopes for the season.
“We’re just hoping for a good season, finish it off and maybe win a league title this year. …” he said. “Getting Noah Danieli to state is really, really a big goal of ours. Less than 2 percent of the wrestlers in the entire state make it to that tournament, and he’s ranked 24th out of 2,000 wrestlers, so that’s a big goal of ours. We’ve only had a few from Bear River ever make it to that tournament.”
