Through the first few weeks of the season, Matt Linsacum has seen remarkable wrestling across all four grades at Hayden High School, and the Western Slope Showdown gave him even more reason to be excited. 

Linsacum, Hayden’s head coach, said the team’s focus is always on preparing for the regional and state tournaments and with 40 schools competing at Montrose High School over the weekend, it was a great opportunity to test where the Tigers sit among all divisions in the state. 

With 11 Tigers competing, six of them placed, which Linsacum said is “really good” for a small school like Hayden. The team ultimately finished 10th overall in the tournament. 

“I was pumped about that, and I think our team and our coaches were excited about that,” Linsacum said. “We had two freshmen who placed in the top-4, which is huge in the 32-man brackets. Those kids wrestled really well being young kids. We had some of our older kids do really well and those who had losses early and were out the first day, they learned a lot from those losses and it helps prepare them.” 

The freshman duo of Israel Perez, 106 pounds, and Jerrett Davis, 144, each placed fourth overall in their respective weight classes. 

According to Linsacum, the biggest takeaways from the tournament include working on positional wrestling and preparation for matches. While it may seem like a small thing, staying hydrated and getting good warmups and cool-downs between matches is key to success in any tournament. 

Linsacum also pointed to cardio work as another key to early-season training for the long season ahead. 

Both Steamboat Springs and Soroco also competed in the Western Slope Showdown, taking 26th and 34th, respectively, in the tournament. 

Next up for Hayden is the Warrior Classic in Grand Junction.

“I think this tournament is a tougher tournament than the Western Slope Showdown,” Linsacum explained. “We are hoping to get some kids some medals and bring home some hardware from this one.” 

The Warrior Classic will close out the first segment of the season before a two-week holiday break. The Tigers will then return with a few more challenging tournaments at the start of January. 

Linsacum said stacking the first half of the schedule with all of these intense tournaments is key to a successful season. 

“We do that by design,” Linsacum said. “We have changed our schedule over the last few years. We want to push ourselves. We are not carried away with the wins and losses, we are more focused on the competition. We know that iron sharpens iron, so we have to go test ourselves against some of the best, as opposed to going to some smaller tournaments and not getting enough mat time. Our focus is, ‘let’s prepare with great competition.'”