Tiger grapplers prepare for new season

At 4-6 in dual competition, the Nevada Tigers wrestling team showed tremendous heart throughout the regular season last year. With no wrestlers heavier than 189 pounds and season-ending injuries to senior Jordan Hagerman and senior Trey Miller, the Tigers were left with four open slots, spotting every team they faced 24 points before ever setting foot on the mats.

This season will be an even bigger challenge as the Tigers are left with a total of five open slots at 119, 171, 189, 215 and heavyweight. Some of those slots were not open at the beginning of the year, but due to injuries and loss of interest during preseason workouts, numbers have waned.

"We're small this year. We're small in numbers and small in size," head coach Devin White said. Like last year, the Tigers do not have any wrestlers heavier than 200 pounds to fill the higher weight classes, but the issue has been even further compounded this year with the loss of Arik Williams and Chase Brooks at 171 and 189 pounds, respectively, leaving the Tigers without any competitors larger that 160 pounds.

The Tigers have welcomed several new faces to their roster this year as three freshmen as well as one transfer student have joined the team this year. Among those notable newcomers on this year's roster are freshmen Slade Styles at 103, Daulton Shunkwiler at 130 and Tyler Schmidt at 125, as well as juniors Stephen Parker at 130 and Steven Palmer at 152.

The Tigers have been hit very hard by graduation and injury this year, but will still have a number of familiar faces on the roster. Among the most notable of those familiar names are two returning state qualifiers in sophomore Tanner Charles and senior Todd Brier.

Charles will be stepping up from 103 to 112 for this season while Brier will remain at 160, where he finished just one match away from the medal round with a close loss to Monett High School senior Scotty Wilson in the 2009 MSHSAA State Wrestling Championships.

Both Charles and Brier finished the 2008-'09 regular season ranked in the top-10 in the state of Missouri, according to missouriwrestling.com.

Among the other familiar faces returning to this year's roster will be senior Dominic Habjan at 125, sophomores Kyle Bennett and Bodi Vaughn at 135, senior Alex Giunta and sophomore Zach Shepherd at 140 and senior Scotty Bough at 145.

Bough is another wrestler that White has high hopes for in the 2009 season. "He's a good kid. He always wrestles hard and I think he's in a position where he can do a lot for us this year," White said.

White said that practice has been tough on him and many of his players early on, resulting in a few injuries, but things have gone well, overall. Everyone has been more than willing to maintain a high level of intensity and work ethic, improving with each passing day, he said.

"It's been intense. I even went home with a black eye earlier in the week," White said in a Nov. 20 interview regarding this season's early practices.

The Tigers are edging ever so much closer to the start of the year and have placed as much emphasis as possible on simply being ready at the start of the year to overcome what is certain to be a tumultuous year thanks to a short roster, but hopes are still high. This year's season is set to start on Dec. 4 and 5, when the Tigers head out on the road to the Pleasant Hill Invitational tournament in Pleasant Hill, Mo.

"We've only got 13, so we're pretty thin this year, but I'm excited, White said. "I'm ready to get the year started."