{"id":107890,"date":"2015-12-03T20:18:39","date_gmt":"2015-12-04T03:18:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bears-begin-season-in-flagstaff\/"},"modified":"2015-12-03T20:18:39","modified_gmt":"2015-12-04T03:18:39","slug":"bears-begin-season-in-flagstaff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bears-begin-season-in-flagstaff\/","title":{"rendered":"Bears begin season in Flagstaff"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image naviga-align-left alignleft\" data-naviga-align=\"left\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=ed7cf6d4-2264-4704-a381-763ec2932133&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" srcset=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=ed7cf6d4-2264-4704-a381-763ec2932133&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=800 800w, https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=ed7cf6d4-2264-4704-a381-763ec2932133&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=1200 1200w, https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=ed7cf6d4-2264-4704-a381-763ec2932133&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=1800 1800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 2000px\" width=\"675\" height=\"1199\" alt=\"Brandon Ward lifts Colton Sims and returns him to the mat on the way to a consolation round win in last season\u2019s state wrestling championships in Denver.\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Brandon Ward lifts Colton Sims and returns him to the mat on the way to a consolation round win in last season\u2019s state wrestling championships in Denver.<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Sam Green\/Dolores Star<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>With former head coach Leo Garand moving on to Durango High School, Dane Gallaher takes over as head coach of the Dolores wrestling program after three years as an assistant.<\/p>\n<p>Gallaher and the Bears begin the season with 12 wrestlers on the roster, including two returning state qualifiers.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, the Bears had three wrestlers compete at the state tournament in Guy Wallace, Austin Hackney and Brandon Ward.<\/p>\n<p>Wallace graduated, but Hackney returns as a sophomore after finishing 12-18 last season and Ward returns for his junior year after placing third at state with a 31-12 record.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s a seasoned wrestler, a junior,\u201d Gallaher said of Ward. \u201cThere\u2019s no reason he shouldn\u2019t be a state placer again.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Gallaher also mentioned Dustin Beltran, Skieler Grooms and Gage Reynolds as key contributors.<\/p>\n<p>Beltran was regionally ranked last season and will slide into the 126-pound class this season, while freshman Grooms enters his first year of high school wrestling after placing in the middle school state tournament last year.<\/p>\n<p>Reynolds, a junior, was voted as a team captain along with Ward.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m looking for big things from him,\u201d Gallaher said of Reynolds. \u201cGage is a really strong young man and should be a state qualifier also.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Bears will begin the season this weekend at the Flagstaff Tournament, which Gallaher said is a great way to start the year against high-level competition.<\/p>\n<p>As for his goals for the season, he would like to one-up the team\u2019s results from last year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019d like to qualify four kids to state this year, bump up one, and get two placers this year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut more than that,\u201d he continued, \u201cWe\u2019re just trying to instill a culture of gentlemen, and have kids come out of here not only as good wrestlers but as good young men.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dolores wrestling team returns two state qualifiers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":107891,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5770],"tags":[44],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-107890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-high-school-sports","tag-dolores"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107890"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=107890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}