McQueen Wrestling: Welcome

Welome to the McQueen High School Wrestling teams web page. This season continues our quest to achieve the goals and traditions established at McQueen High School. The team goals can be reached through hard work, dedication and support from family members and fans. The goals are to Win the High Desert Regular season Division, Win the Northern Nevada Zone Championship and the State Championship.

The 2009-10 season brought a lot of challenges and new experiences. The Lancer wrestling team had lost 9 Seniors from the previous season, but we knew that we could still make some noise. Well when the season came around we had a very young group and lacked experience on the mat. We worked hard and many of the younger wrestlers were learning the work load needed for the wrestling season. We lost some of the kids we had expected to keep our team at the top to injuries, and leaving. The team pulled together in our duals though putting up a 4-2 league record which was actually better than last season. We also finished 8th as a team in the regional tournament. We had some bright spots and much to look forward to in the future. The freshman took their lumps but gained valuable experience for next year. James DeLeon had a gerat year as our 103 pounder. He led the team in takedowns and posted a 34-14 record with 11 pins just missing the state tournament placing 4th at Regionals. He also placed 2nd in two tournaments and 3rd in Oregon and 4th at the Mark Fuller. Other freshman thatmadean impact were Tyler Yoshimaru who pulled out a huge win against Reed and wrestled in a very tough weight class. Joseph Pershall who's win at Elko sealed it. Eddie Kaufer who stepped in a Varsity roll at the end of the year. We look forward to others contributing next year in Mike Paulk, Alex Davis, Matt Dragan, Nick Cleymaet, and Zach Grulli.

Our Sophmore class showed some promise as well with Tyson Otuafi spending most of the season rehabbing a knee injury. He opened some eyes at Regionals beating the #1 seed in the first round. We can see where he can be with a full season of matches under his belt. Bob Wood showed a ton of growth and how offseason work can pay off. He won the JV Zone tournament and picked up a victory at Regionals wrestling as an extra. Korey Kavanaugh and anthony Martin showed improvement on the season and look to make an impact next year.

 The Junior class had thinned out, but those that were left were huge. Eddie Rodriguez spent most of the year in the practice room unable to compete, but stuck it out and found himself a spot on the varsity squad at 171. Jeff Lobos was a huge breath of life to our team. In his frst season of wrestling as a Junior he beat a state placer to win a tournament, and placed second in Bakersfield.m He also posted a 27-12 record leading the team with 19 pins. Also in his first season and wrestling Varsity was Moses Kotoa. He had a good dual meet season going 4- 2 in league and just missed going to state by placing 4th at regionals. Joseph DeLeon had the best overall season on the team. He posted a 34-12 record winning 3 tournaments in a row and placing 2nd in regionals for the second time. Joseph is proof that with hard work good things can happen and there are few that work as hard as he does.

I will add to this later and go on to the summer outlook.

Congaratulations to Karrington Armstrong for winning the State Championship. McQueens first State Champion since 2001.

Congratulations to Riley Frazier for a good performance at State who just missed placing at State.

With the season winding down we are heading into our most important duals and the regional tournament with a much different team than we initially expected. We knew that we would be young for the most part, but we thought we would see some of our older kids step up and lead. We get to this point with a complete overhaul of our team and prepare for the end of the year with a very young and inexperienced group. That is great for the future if those kids stick it out for their four years and if they work hard in the off season. There have been many bright spots though. Joseph DeLeon is our captain and leader, ad he has done just that. After a tough TOC he fo und his grove and went 5-2 at the SNC, placed 2nd at the Willamette Inv, 1st at Lovelock, 1st at Mark Fuller, and 1st at the Highland Inv. and just keeps improving. James DeLeon has wrestled very well in his freshman year placing 3rd at the Willamette Inv. 2nd at Lovelock, 4th at Mark Fuller and 2nd at the Highland Inv. Another Bright Spot has been Jeff Lobos a first year junior has taken 1st at Lovelock, 4th at Mark Fuller, and 2nd at the Highland Inv. It's been fun watching their progress. We are very excited about our young group wi th Alex Davis, Matt Dragan, and Eddie Kaufer doing well on JV and could fit in nicely next year on Varsity. Also we have had Mike Paulk, Tyler Yoshimaru, Tyler Frasca, Zach Grulli, and Joseph Pershall fill in at Varsity as freshman and competing very well. Others that we look forward to seeing progress from, but have seen some road blocks this season are Scott Downie, Eddie Rodriguez, Ian Hughes, Tyson Otuafi, Korey Kavanaugh, Anthony Martin, Brandon Johnson, Sebastian Fejer, Domonic Jones, and Moses Kotoa. We look forward to seen more from most of these guys in the future as well as Eric Martinez who we lost to a knee injury 1 week after he was cleared to compete.  We hope to wrestle our best come the end of the year and suprise a few people at regionals this year.