Published: July 29, 2009 12:29 am      

Wrestlers prepare for offseason challenge

All-Stars will take part in tourney on Saturday.

The summer practice schedule can be a grind with no obvious payoff. Yes, getting better is its own reward, but when the wrestling season is still months away, it’s hard to see the destination.

That’s where the Howard County All-Star wrestling squad comes in.

A new project this season, the team was formed to give local wrestlers a chance to get a good competition in over the summer. The team, made up of wrestlers from Howard County schools, as well as a couple Tri-Central wrestlers, will participate in the Grand River Rumble on Saturday in Lowell, Mich.

“We’re not looking into going and winning this tournament, we’re going to be going up against teams that are state teams,” Howard County coach Ryan Wells said, noting that the New Jersey contingent features some national champions to illustrate the level of competition.

“Basically, our goal here is to get a little exposure for these guys, to have some fun, get some mat time and just build up the sport. Will they get better from it? Absolutely they’ll get better from it. It gives them a goal for the offseason wrestling.”

Taylor’s Gary Kleinknight came up with the idea for the project this season and approached Kokomo coach Wells, who jumped at the chance to guide the squad.

The tentative lineup expected to head up to Michigan on Saturday is: Kokomo’s Tony Benedict at 112 pounds; Northwestern’s Matt Miller at 119; Taylor’s Kris Workman at 125; Northwestern’s Jesse Goodnight at 130; Kokomo’s Sebastian Rybolt at 136; Tri-Central’s Keegan Pyke at 142; Western’s Logun Taylor at 147; Tri-Central’s Montrail Johnson at 152; Taylor’s Brock Newton at 160; Taylor’s Christian Harvey at 169; Western’s Mark Reser at 189; Kokomo’s Dylan Green at 215; and Northwestern’s Evan Floyd at 286.

“Teams from nine different states and a team from Canada are going to be there [at the tournament] with some very high-quality wrestling going on,” Wells said. “It’s going to be a really good experience for them to go and see some competition that they’ll never see again unless they go to a national tournament.”

The team is open to any high school wrestler interested in getting more mat time and good competition this summer. In the first season, the team has only one tournament planned, but Wells hopes the team takes root and grows with more than one full team of wrestlers competing and an array of tournaments on the schedule.

Wells thinks local wrestling needs this kind of off-season mat time to grow after a few lean years.

“There’s teams all over the place that do stuff like this, kind of put together area teams,” he said. “Here lately it seems like our area has been a little bit down compared to other parts of the state. This is one of the ways we are trying to bring our area back up to par … get the kids excited about offseason wrestling, get the kids excited about wrestling.”