After a year that saw two of the Enid High School wrestlers (Carlos Alvarado, Shae Salinas) make the State tournament, and one (Alvarado) finishing on the podium in 4th, another year has begun, with a different, but still exciting season in store. While Alvarado is still improving his mat skills, now as a walk-on at Oklahoma State, Salinas is left to try to become a four-time state qualifier, and this time reach the podium herself. “After making the tournament last year, Shae wrestled a lot over the summer, did a lot of freestyle, so we expect big things from her,” said Head Coach Trent Holland.
As for the team in general, there is a lot to look forward to. “The season is still early,” said Holland, “we have some guys from last year that are making the move to the next level that we have been pleased with. Lot of areas we still need to clean up ad work on, but position wise we have made some good improvements from last year. We do have some decent experience, maybe one of the largest groups of seniors I’ve ever had, both girls and boys. We also have some good sophomores coming up, so it’s pretty balanced.”
As far as the senior leaders this year, in addition to Salinas, Steven Brooks, Payton Zweifel, Zach Fortner and Rhyan Rader will all be counted on to be examples for the rest of the team. “These seniors add a lot of value to the team, they have been around, they know the expectations, so it’s good to have a large group of seniors this year. Payton and Steven both almost made the state tournament last year and that’s certainly a realistic goal for them. They have the capability and tools if they work hard and wrestle well.” said Holland.
While the team is certainly counting on the seniors to score some points, several of the new, and young kids in the room are going to help the team out. “A lot of these kids are going to make some headway and are improving quickly. They are definitely going to push some people in the room and make the team better. A lot of them have previous wrestling experience, through the youth and junior high program, so they know our expectations. We are also hoping to add a large number of football players. The Head Football Coach is really pushing his guys into trying wrestling, so that will definitely add some numbers.”
As always in high school sports, you may lose some of the team stars and favorites every year, but new stars emerge. It will be exciting to see who steps up and takes the mantel this year for the Enid team.
