The weather changing and the clocks turning back signifies one thing: the winter sports season. Included in that is wrestling, which starts up this week as both Northwood and Seaforth begin their 2021 campaigns.
Northwood, coming off of a season that included two state championship qualifiers — freshman Josh Miller (now at Seaforth) and sophomore Cliff Davis — is attempting to recreate last season’s success with a new head coach, Joe Harris, at the helm. Seaforth, in its first season as a program, is working strictly with underclassmen under former Northwood head coach Ryan Armstrong, who said he has high hopes for this season despite the inexperience of most of his squad.
This week, the News + Record spoke to both Harris and Armstrong to discuss their team’s season outlook, star performers and how they’ve prepared their underclassmen for the road ahead. Conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Being the head coach is more responsibility. You’re teaching them leadership and all different kinds of things. But as the assistant, you’re kind of doing whatever the head coach asks you to do.
I’ve been making them run a lot, getting their stamina and cardio up. I’ve also got the seniors where, instead of me going out there teaching it, I’ll have the seniors go out there in the middle of the mat and show them how to do the moves and I’ll walk around the room to make sure everybody’s doing it right. But I like the seniors doing it because it’s teaching them leadership to go out there and take charge and show the team what to do.
He’s taking charge and leading the team like he should and he’s shown good talent. I’m really just waiting to see his first match to see what he’s truly capable of, but I think he’ll bring a lot of good to ur team.
We actually didn’t get to wrestle Seaforth because of an injury, but when we wrestled Carrboro, we did really well, we only had two kids that lost due to just little mistakes that they made like not really staying in good position, but other than that, the team looked pretty good.
I think it benefitted us well, especially when it comes to new wrestlers that have never been to a wrestling match or ever had to deal with one to show them what it’s all about and what all they should be expecting.
We have a new guy, Ethan Kuball, that came from out of state and he’s really impressed us a lot. He knows what he’s doing and he does very good. And then there’s Coltrane Northington, who’s improving and working hard. And then there’s all of the freshmen, who are actually doing really well and learning at their pace and getting it down.
I think they should be excited because we have a really strong team. We’ve got a lot of guys that want to compete and give it their all and are looking to be successful out there.
Like I keep telling the boys, the parents and the community, our thing is that the boys you see today will not be the boys you see before we go to regionals. We have set the bar high, we’re going after the conference. We’re planning on making a run at regionals and putting some put some bodies at the state tournament this year, but they have to buy-in. Coming in with a brand new program, with brand new kids, we can’t neglect our higher kids, but we also can’t neglect our lower kids, so our goal is to teach them the basics and teach them the right way. They’re not going to go out there and score a bunch of points and stuff like that, but they’re going to be competitive and they’re at least going to know what they’re dealing with. We’ve been focusing on your standard setups, your takedowns, giving them one good position on the bottom, giving them one good move on top, so we’re focusing on that. Like we told them, ‘Some stuff you’re going to get and there’s going to be stuff that you’re not going to get, so we’ve just got to figure out what works for you and then go from there.’
We see a state champion out of him. He’s put the work in during the summertime and the offseason. The biggest thing we’re seeing from Josh is the leadership. Not so much last year because he was a small fish in a big pond and we had some dominant leaders in that room at Northwood, but we’re seeing right now where, this is Josh’s team and Josh is taking the team underneath him and we’re building a family, we’re building a culture and Josh is leading by example. My thing with Josh is, I’ve got to keep him competitive, so we’ve made our schedule around Josh a little bit. We’ve got him into some 4A tournaments, knowing that our boys will probably get beat up pretty good at those tournaments, but we still have to grow Josh as an athlete.
The Armstrong boy , we’ve got high hopes for him. Then there’s Walker Bowman , brand new kid that’s strong as an ox. We’re seeing a lot of potential out of him. If we can keep growing him and he listens and he stays the suit, he’ll make a run for it. We’ve got a couple of young kids that’s 138-145 lbs. but we don’t really know what it looks like. We’ve got Anthony Veschi, he’ll be in either 152 or 160, he’s strong and he’s going to make a run. I’ve got Roger Eubanks, who’s also strong and he’s going to make a run. I’ve got Cole Ballard, he’ll have a good season this year, as well. And then there’s Mike LaTucci, another strong kid, well disciplined. I owe a lot to the football coach, Terrance Gary, for the discipline that he’s instilled in the football players. They’re catching on quick. They’re coachable and we’ve got to win in the books in order to win on the on the mat.
We’ve always walked into programs with a little bit of talent, but now we’ve got all of the talent and no technique, so we’ve had to change our coaching style this year to adapt to green wrestlers.
It’s been a roller coaster. I left a lot of great kids at Northwood that I had and they relied on me. I left my oldest son there, that piece of it breaks my heart that I couldn’t stick around, but coming into a brand new room and building my program around some good coaches. I wouldn’t even say it’s my program, it’s our program. And seeing the community involvement — at our scrimmage last Wednesday, I was laughing at Coach Jason Amy because we wrestled in the auxiliary gym and he said when we fill it, we can move into the big gym. ... Well, we had it filled. So it’s going to be exciting. The community wants to see the Northwood-Seaforth match and we’re going to give it to them. It’s exciting, but I’m nervous at the same time. The outside supporting cast that we have, we couldn’t ask for anything better. We’ve just got to go out there and put what we’re being taught to use on the mat and then execute.
We’re going with the saying ‘Dare to Dream.’ We need to rally around our guys and show them the support because we are going to be a state championship team. It may not be this year, but it’ll be sooner than later. So they need to come out and support a program that’s going to be a state championship-caliber program for years to come.
Like I’ve told these guys, there’s no reason why we don’t win a conference championship this season. We’ll do OK in regionals, I wouldn’t expect a whole lot coming out of regionals, but a lot of that is going to depend on what team shows up in January. We’ve got a five-meter target, a 10-meter target and our 20-meter target is a state championship, but if I was to call it today, there should be no reason why we don’t win a conference championship in our first year.
