Between January 31 and February 1, Powell’s wrestling team marched through the Riverton gymnasium, wrestling competitors statewide. Ron Thon is a great warmup tournament for the upcoming State Tournament, with competition up to and including 4A teams.
Powell boys had an excellent weekend finishing 4th overall while the girl’s team fought to finish 7th.
“Ron Thon, I guess, outside of the state tournament, it is the big show, so to speak,” boys wrestling coach Mr. Nick Fulton said. “You know, every team’s there.”
Wrestlers can see their state competition at Ron Thon and possibly even harder competition in 4A wrestlers. It is a great opportunity to learn and improve to fully prepare for the more important State Tournament.
“You know it’s pretty tough,” junior Tyler Wenzel said. “I got some 4A kids, you know, some 2A, 3A kids… basically the whole state was there.”
Tyler Wenzel had an impressive showing this weekend going 5-2 and finishing fourth overall in his weight class of 132 lbs, helping the Powell guys leap into that fourth-best spot in the state. Despite this performance, Tyler has even higher hopes for the rest of the season.
“Getting over this sickness, feeling pretty healthy again,” Wenzel said. “I expect to do a lot better and place top three at state you know.”
Setting these high goals might be what it takes for Powell to reach their full potential and succeed in the State Tournament.
“I think we’re doing pretty good already,” Wenzel said. “Our main competitor is definitely Pinedale, but I think we can get some more people to do better… get some team points on the board, I think we can come up with a dub, team champs.”
The Powell boys have a solid set of men ready to take on the competition and get their team as far as they can. It takes everyone to come out as state champions.
“We got an awful good team,” Fulton said. “There’s some other good teams in the state, but we want to get them as prepared as we can to do well coming into this home stretch.”
Wrestling is a grueling sport that takes a lot of training and grit to take your skill to the next level. The coaches do their best to get these boys in shape and take their skills above their competition.
“Coach Fulton, Mr. Fulton that teaches history over there in the purple pod had some wrestlers that already graduated to come in and help us,” Wenzel said. “You know, train us, teach us some moves with a big name, Seth Horton (who) wrestled at Notre Dame.”
These tough, hard-working boys, with a great coaching staff, have a bright season ahead of them. Alongside this, the girls wrestling team also deserves high praise for their performance at Ron Thon.
“I felt like our team did really well,” junior Nalani Jordan said. “We ended up 7th and, for us, against all those really big teams, I think we did really well. We had multiple girls placing and that was really cool as well.”
The girl’s wrestling team puts in just as much work as the guys do and deserves to be noticed. Powell had two first-place finishers, one being Nalani Jordan, and the other being the champion at 285 lbs. Doug Bettger.
“Like I tell the guys, it’s on the weekends I’m a glorified cheerleader a little bit,” Fulton said. “We try to do the right things during the week and build a good schedule… so that they can perform on the weekend. There’s always room for improvement, whether it be from me or the guys, but I’m pleased with where we are.”
