By Jeremy McDonald

jermeymcdonald73@gmail.com

OREGON CITY, Ore.–  It’s back to work bright and early for the Clackamas Community College Wrestling Team.

By 9am, they were in the mat room for the first of their two New Years Eve practices.

“That break was good,” said Haszell West.  “It was nice to get away from being in the room grinding every day.

“But we still have to work out, stay in shape so you go on your runs, get your little workouts in  whenever you can.”

For Cougars Head Coach Josh Rhoden, he knows how important it was for his team to heal up after several wrestlers came down with injuries during the Tournament of Champions on December 20 in Reno.

“It’s always good to have a break, everyone get’s a mental rest and obviously the physical rest helps as well,” said Rhoden.  “We have several guys that are coming off small injuries and stuff that they got to take care of to get where we want to be,”

“But it was good, the guys are refreshed and feel good about where they’re at and are looking forward to the competition coming up.”

Up next for the Grapplers of Clackamas Community College is the NWCA National Duals in Fort Wayne, Indiana where the Cougs are following the same game plan of two-a-days the week before backing off the week of.

“It’s worked for us in the past really well,” said Rhoden.  “These guys are really super receptive to everything we’ve thrown at them so far this year and that’s helped so we’re really excited to see how we get to do next weekend.”

The strategy working is an understatement as Clackamas CC are looking for their third straight NWCA National Dual Championship as they have won three of the last six entering this year.

With Rhoden, John Morin and Chris Garcia having experience from the two-peat team of last year, excitement is there for the youngsters.

“I didn’t go (last year),” “But just hearing about those guys getting the two-time National Dual championships was just nice.  It got me excited to be a part of it.

“It’s not like pressure or anything, we just kind of see it as something, ‘alright let’s go, let’s get this three-peat, that’ll be cool to have.”

But Rhoden knows he has to try to keep his team on the straight narrow and focusing only on the match that is ahead of them.

“The hardest thing is most of these guys haven’t been on the teams who won the last two,” said Rhoden.  “So (we’re) trying to recreate that a little bit and get these guys up for it, it’s task a task but we got a bunch of good guys.

“You got to look at it as ‘hey, we got to stay in the moment and we have to look at we have in front of us’. There’s nothing else that matters than that first dual where we find out who we wrestle, after the first of the year and we focus on that.”

As the Cougars turned their focus to their afternoon practice, training for the squad will go until January 6 before flying out to Fort Wayne, Indiana for the NWCA National Duals that start January 8.

Jeremy McDonald is a professional sports journalist in the Salem/Portland area and is a member of the Society of Professional Journalist in Oregon with B.S. degrees from Southern Oregon University in Journalism (2011) and Health/PE (2013).  Got a story idea? Email him at jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com or on Twitter at @J_McDonald81!

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