Trojan Wrestling Has It's First National Qualifier Of The Season At The LU Open

Freshmen Nathan Downs led the way for Trojan wrestling at the Lindenwood University Open with 3 wins to qualify for the NAIA national tournament in Oklahoma City, OK in March. Downs’s 8-2 victory over John Gurule (Lindenwood University) put him in a position to face number one seed and defending NAIA national Champion Aaron Winning. Winning came out on top with a fall over Downs in 1:15. Downs did not lose his focus or resolve to continue his run toward qualifying for the national tournament. Downs’s first match in the consolation bracket matched him against senior Andrew Cheesman (McKendree College). It was evident that Downs’s conditioning came through for him as he outworked Cheesman. Downs won the match 8-6 over Cheesman. Downs’s freshmen initiation to college wrestling did not stop with Cheesman as he wrestled Colten Unzicker (Lindenwood University). Downs won in triple overtime with a score of 5-3. Downs was then finally stopped in the consolation finals by junior and third place finisher Robbie Hinkle (Lindenwood University). Downs’s only losses on the day were from the second and third place finishers of the tournament. Because Downs finished in the top 6 of 25 wrestlers he qualified for the national tournament. Freshmen Kyle Blankenship was one match away from qualifying when Senior Clint Arlis from the University of Illinois stopped Blankenship’s run. Fellow freshmen Josh Smith finished the day with two victories and junior Daniel Yuriatis and freshmen Jobi Hambrick both captured wins on the day. I believe history will show that the LU Open helped our young wrestlers realize that they can compete at a high level. Even though we lost some matches against some tough opponents and even to Big Ten and Big Twelve opponents our wrestlers were in positions to win. Some were even in position to win against D-1 opponents in a few of the matches. I’m not satisfied with the result that we saw this year at LU. I KNOW we can do better in the future! However, I’m encouraged by the prospect of success in the future of Trojan wrestling. I’m also encouraged by the desire of our wrestlers to get better. Several of the wrestlers told me today that they needed to be determined to hone their skills and work ethic in the wrestling room so they can see success against the tough opponents they know they can beat in the future. This season opener has proven to be more successful than our season opener last year in our first year of competition. I’m looking forward to seeing what the rest of the season has in store for us!
Written by Coach Scott Hawes

HLG Season Opener at Lindenwood University Open this Friday

HLG wrestlers will see the first action of the 2009-10 season this Friday at the Lindenwood University Open. Thankfully, we have some upperclassmen leadership this year who have helped prepare their younger teammates for the rigors of college wrestling. I believe our freshmen wrestlers understand how tough college wrestling can be partly because of their more experienced teammates. After Friday the freshmen will have their own college wrestling experience to fall back on in preparation for future events. With over 60 NCAA D-1 wrestlers registered to participate, the LU Open is undoubtedly one of the toughest tournaments in the nation that we could use to open up the season. Some people might think we are crazy for taking a team of mostly freshmen to this tournament, but we want our freshmen to see what they are up against at our level of national competition. The freshmen will have more opportunities to shine at future tournaments this season. In future tournaments they will be able to compete with more wrestlers with their same level of experience, but the LU Open will give them a vision of what it will take to be successful on the national stage! I believe we have some talent in the room which could surprise some people at the LU Open. Only time will tell if my opinion is accurate. We have had some minor injuries as I’m sure any other team has seen at this time in the year. We will have two wrestlers not wrestling this Friday, because of injury. We will have some wrestlers who are ineligible this semester who will be wrestling unattached in the LU Open and will also be traveling on their own to other open tournaments throughout the semester. Hopefully, we will see those wrestlers join us next semester. My goal is to post some results Friday night. By the way, the championship singlets are packed for any of our wrestlers who will be in any of the finals or consolation finals. I wonder who will be the first HLG wrestler to earn one!

Written by Coach Scott Hawes

ANNOUNCING THE FIRST EVER TROJAN WRESTLING CAMP 2010

One of the goals that I had coming in last year as the new head coach of Hannibal-LaGrange College’s wrestling program was to start having QUALITY summer wrestling camps. I’m happy to announce that this summer I’m planning our first ever Hannibal-LaGrange College Trojan Wrestling Camp. I’m also pleased to announce that my college wrestling coach and Olympic Champion Ben Peterson has committed to being a key clinician at the Trojan Wrestling Camp (TWC) which is scheduled for June 27th-June 1st. Ben Peterson is also the Executive Director of Camp of Champs and directs his summer camps in Wisconsin. In spite of his busy schedule, Ben has graciously offered his services to Hannibal-LaGrange College wrestling for a few days this summer. In order to compliment the HLG coaching staff I’m now working to line up at least one other Camp of Champs clinician who has been at least an All-American wrestler. HLG wrestlers will also be utilized in running TWC. I’m trying to keep TWC affordable! I would like to keep it in the $225-$250 price range for residential campers and $125-$150 for commuters, but I have to finalize a few more details before I release the final price. This year we are going to focus TWC on 9-12 grades. In years to come we may expand the camp to include lower grades, but I don’t want to take on more than our program is ready to handle. My head assistant coach, Ian Northcott, is also our strength and conditioning coach, and he will be teaching Healthy Weight Loss, Lifting and Conditioning Strategies. Start spreading the word about the Trojan Wrestling Camp! More details will be posted about TWC soon!

Streaming Video Coverage of Home Wrestling Duals is a Reality

Over the last couple of weeks I, with the help of our IT department and Head Men’s and Women’s Volley Ball Coach David Ganser, have been able to test streaming video and secure permission to cover our home sporting events Live on the internet. Yes that is right LIVE STREAMING VIDEO COVERAGE WILL BE A REALITY AT HLG HOME DUALS THIS SEASON!;-) It is official! This will be a great opportunity for our fans who live too far away to travel to a home event. This year to watch the event it is free for our fans. In the future we may need to charge a fee in order to watch it live. If we can get some sponsors we may be able to maintain the service free of charge. In order to get sponsors we have to have a good number of free subscribers. So help out HLG wrestling out by getting as many of your family and friends to watch your favorite athletes on Live Sports Video. Not only will you be able to watch your wrestler live, but if you have to miss it for some reason you will be able to watch the archived copy of the event between 24-48 hours after the event ends its live broadcast. If you would like to preregister for free and check out the archived Women’s V-ball events you can do so by following this link http://www.hlg.edu/athletics/default.php and click on Watch Now. This link will take you to the HLG Live Sports Video page. Because V-ball is the only sport that has used it you will only be able to see V-ball. I will be logging on in the next week or so and setting up the broadcast for our wrestling. When I do get our home duals broadcast set up I will let everyone know.

First Weeks of Practice Summary

Now that our 24 week season has started Coach Northcott and I can start coaching the wrestlers and leading practice. Many of our wrestlers have had very good coaching in their high school programs. However, there is still room for improvement. I’m sure most of our wrestler’s former coaches would agree. Sloppy technique that worked at the high school level isn’t going to work at the college level if it isn’t sharpened. Part of the sharpening process depends on who critiques the wrestlers, who does the wrestler have to practice with, and what effort the wrestler puts into “perfecting” what he already knows. We have the luxury of having wrestlers in our room from all over the Midwest, one from Texas and two others from South Carolina. Our wrestlers all bring their own styles into our room which is good for the health of our room. Each of our wrestlers learns from each other as well as from their coaches. I’ve been encouraged to see some of our wrestlers teaching each other some technique that they like in order to help advance their teammates chances for success on the mat. It is interesting to watch some of our wrestlers as they get frustrated trying technique that they used all the time in high school and seeing that it is not working in our wrestling room. If it is not working in our room, it probably isn’t going to be affective when it comes to competition outside of the room. So we have been working on getting back to the basics and refining the technique and body positions that the wrestlers already know about but still need to work on. We have introduced some technique that may be new to some of the wrestlers, but that has not been our emphasis. Along with sharpening technique we have been working to develop a mental and physical toughness through live goes and extra conditioning at the end of practice. If you polled our wrestlers I don’t think you would find a single wrestler who thinks that our practices have been too easy. We have been picking it up, but we need to pick it up a little more. Towards the middle of the week this week we saw a little let down in the level of intensity and hopefully we see the intensity pick up today at practice. Over the last week we have seen a few minor injuries, but not anything the wrestlers shouldn’t bounce back from. We have had a few wrestlers state that they felt we were going to hard and that they were sore. I can understand why. We have been going hard and maybe harder than some of them have ever gone. Coach Northcott reminded the wrestlers yesterday that it takes about 14 days for wrestlers to get into wrestling shape. By next week we should be close to our wrestling shape and looking to improve every day after that. Our first competition will be at Lindenwood University and is only 20 days away. Lindenwood University is a very tough first tournament of the season which will introduce many of our wrestlers to how challenging college wrestling really can be. The date for the LU tournament is October 30th and is an unusual one as we will be wrestling the tournament on a Friday instead of a Saturday. I hope many of our fans in the St. Louis area can make it.