Coach Hills
; Greetings from N. Carolina. From one old Raider to another...best
of luck this season. P.S. Tell Coach Lineman hello the next time you
see him......... Bob Loveless
Great to hear from you Bob! As you well know
we have been having a great football season here as well. Tonight
was our 1st practice with our football crew. 5 letterman included.
I'll definitely pass on your hello to The Coach.
Coach, When you were a wrestler who was your toughest
opponent?
Wow! Wrestled a lot of very tough opponents
throughout my career. Had the honor of wrestling several NCAA III
champions in college. Usually they were from John Carroll
University. As a Thiel Freshman I wrestled Brad Bowman who was a
Senior defending National Champion and lost 5-4. The strange thing
was he had his wife and kids rooting for him in the front row. In
high school I would have to say Jay Hockenbrock from E. Juniata in
the State Finals. He was 29-0 with something like 26 falls coming
into the Finals. I happened to be 29-0 with 18 falls and lost to him
7-6. He was the defending State Runnerup from the year before.
Locally Chuck Swartz from Commodore Perry seemed to give me fits all
the time. I was fortunate to beat him every time but there were
several close calls. We respect each other even today.
How does this team rank with the other great Reynolds teams?
This team has the opportunity to become
possibly the greatest we've had. Our schedule is the toughest ever
and not having the football players will slow us somewhat. We would
like to have been in top condition to wrestle in the 2 toughest
tournaments in the country but we'll have to work into it. The
Ironman #2 and Beast of the East #1 will give us tremendous exposure
and prepare us for the dual meet and post season. Last years team
was quite remarkable in that we accomplished everything but winning
the State Dual meet championship. We never expected last years team
to jell like it did and overcoming several key injuries that limited
our upper weights.
Do you know who you will wrestle at the ultimate duals this
year?
If we wrestle true to form we will more than
likely wrestle several of the teams we would meet at the State Duals
in February. We have been wrestling in the Ultimate Duals since
their inception and typically always wrestle the top team in the
State. Last year all 3 teams we wrestled at the PIAA States we
wrestled at the Ultimate Duals. This year Mt. Pleasant and Northern
Lehigh have very good teams back and we look forward to wrestling
them. Also competing will be Brookville, Port Allegheny,
Mifflinburg, Greenville and a team from Maryland. December 19th is
when they will announce the pairings. They usually don't matchup
teams from the same District if you wrestle them on the regular
season schedule. We will be wrestling Greenville the following week.
Will wrestlers who played football be at the Ironman?
Yes. We decided the best way to get into top
wrestling condition is to wrestle HARD matches. The competition
there will push our guys to wrestle hard for 6 minutes. There is no
way they can be in the condition necessary to compete at this elite
level and we will probably not be as prepared as we would like to
have been for this tournament but it will help our kids get better
prepared for The Beast of the East the following weekend. I have
nothing but the utmost confidence in all of our kids and they will
compete at a high level.
Hi Coach. How does the success of the football team and the
length of their season, affect your team in the early going? How
long does it usually take for a football player to really get into
wrestling condition and be at the top of his game?
As I stated above we will just not be prepared
as well as we should be to compete in the elite tournaments as we
would have liked. We accepted that fact long ago and rooted for our
wrestling teammates to do well during the football season. Our guys
are in fairly good shape but my guess is it takes about 3 weeks of
intense training added to those HARD matches to begin to be in
wrestling condition. You must work hard all season to become peaked
and at the top of your game.
What's this year's line-up going to look like?
Again we are still trying to figure it out
with the football players just coming in tonight. Our team entered
at the Ironman will be as follows:
103-Cody Kelly
112-Sam Fuchs
119-Paul Kulka
125-Curtis Reynolds
130-Steve Nestor
135-Mason Stewart
140-Aaron Nestor
145-Matt Dunn
152-Josh Burns
160-Lawrence Beckman
171-Jonathan Uhrin or Ryan Dawes
189-Mike Miller
215-Will Ringer
275-Mike Edwards
Our Dual meet lineup can be much better when we get everybody back
in the room. Corey Brown, Brandon Maun and Kaine Kulka will
additionally strengthen our lineup and gives us some good
flexibility in strategy. Mike DiGregorio is injured at present and
Tony D'Urso, AJ Allen, Adrian Best, Joe Combine, Kyle Landfried, Rex
Cooper, Cory Shields and Kurt Sensesak give us depth.
How many wreslters played football this year?
We had 11 wrestlers on the football team
including starters and backups.
Looks like another good class of freshmen, will any of them
crack the starting lineup?
Yes another good group of quality kids. We
look to have 3 to 4 freshmen starting at any given time.
Who are the top teams in the District this year?
As always our Southern Region is very strong
in wrestling. Greenville, Mercer and Grove City will be very good.
Ft. Lebouef and Saegertown will be strong in the North.
You have had a great coaching staff over the years. How have
you managed to maintain a staff of that quailty over time?
It certainly isn't the pay check at
Reynolds. The staff is primarily built of previous RHS wrestlers. We
have also added some outsiders that have been tremendous additions.
We compliment each other and are not afraid to bounce things off one
another. I can honestly say that over the years my job has gotten
easier with this group. We all have something to offer and
my job is to manage that process.
Do you look for a better showing at Ironman this year? What
are your expectaions for the Beast of the East?
Our expectations were very high coming into
the season but without the football players having the opportunity
to prepare as needed we are starting the season more realistic. We
want to compete on a high level and these tournaments are the avenue
to do that.
Coach Hills: I see you are picking up some of the major
tournaments in the country and I commend you on getting the
recognition for the kids that has been long overdue. My question
for you is your competition this year. Who will be your toughest
competitor out of District 10? I hope you have another successful
season. Go Raiders! Kevin Burns '89
Good to hear from you Kevin. You were on my 3rd team. You are
correct in these tournaments providing the national exposure. It's
great to be in the same arena with some of these teams. The
competition is always very good in D-10 and teams are always
building to get better. We feel we have reached a level that is
pretty high for good old Transfer, PA and are extremely proud to
represent our area. Some of our AAA competitors are not so keen
about a small AA school having this much exposure. Ft LeBouef is
probably still the top competition in our District followed by those
previously mentioned.
Coach, any rules changes for this season?
Not to many this year as far as the actual wrestling goes. The main
one being stalling addressed in the ride out period. This is being
referenced as Control riding as opposed to Hanging on riding. 1st
offense is to be called quickly as stalemate with a 2nd being a
stalling penalty. Continuing with stalling, a match is not to be
stopped, when the bottom wrestler gets to his feet to award the
penalty. Also in dual meet tournaments the weight class drawn at the
beginning of the day will dictate the 1st round only and continue to
move up one weight class with each consecutive round.
Hey coach do you think I should have wings or pizza for
dinner tonight...Mason
OK. You are allowed 2 suicide wings and a
small slice of cheese pizza with very hot peppers. That may assist
in getting your excess weight off. Hope you were a little lighter
after Coach T's conditioning tonight. I know you are home studying
also CORRECT? Spoke to several college coaches about you today but
forgot to tell you with so much going on at practice.
coach Hills how will the 10th grade class do this year and
will any of them place at states this year
Our sophomore group is a big part of the success that we had last
season. They really came on
and made us stronger than we ever could imagine. Each of them has
the capability to compete at a higher level this season and we
expect them to do just that. Brandon Maun, Corey Brown, Curtis
Reynolds, Ryan Dawes and Mike Miller are all returning letterman for
us this season.
Coach, Do you ever keep in contact with your former wrestlers
that went off to college. Nick Sommerfield, Dan Burns, Jake Habel,
Joel Davis.
Yes as much as possible. I really would like
to see more of them but it has always been extremely hard with our
schedule. They will be coming in over the holidays and they are
always willing to pass on those techniques to help us improve. We
can still add Justin Nestor to this list as he is in his last year
at Pitt. I really enjoy the relationships we have developed over the
years with our wrestlers and their families. It truly is a tradition
thing!
Haha thats better than the occasional apple, ok i'll talk to
you at practice tomorrow later
Yeah OK You can trade that in for 2 apples. Get er done!
Well thanks to everybody and let's look for a great wrestling
season. Best of luck to all teams and congratulations once again to
our football team, coaches and fans. |