With plenty of talent on the team\u2019s 12-man roster however, this year\u2019s team should have no trouble remaining competitive.<\/p>\n
Leading the way for the Bears will be senior Ethen Upton, who, fresh off a successful football season, plans to wrestle in the 170-pound division.<\/p>\n
An extremely strong and athletic individual, Upton earned a trip to the state tournament last season and plans to return as a senior.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want our whole team to be a state championship team, but we only have twelve people coming out this year, so it\u2019s going to be hard to do that,\u201d said Upton. \u201cI want to go to state again and hopefully place pretty high in state.\u201d<\/p>\n
Also figuring to punch a ticket to the state tournament is Bears\u2019 145-pound senior Deano Valdez, who, after just missing out at a trip to state last season, worked hard to improve during the offseason.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m hoping to go undefeated all the way through state, and I\u2019m hoping to take state,\u201d said Valdez. \u201cI went to a three-week training camp this summer, and I think that it definitely improved a lot of my moves and my technique.\u201d<\/p>\n
Looking to compliment the Bears\u2019 standout seniors, junior Guy Wallace, a 138-pound wrestler, will attempt to qualify for the state tournament.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think (Wallace) will be a state qualifier this year,\u201d said Garand. \u201cHe was wrestling real tough last year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aside from Upton, Valdez and Wallace, the Bears roster is relatively unproven, yet talent is by no means lacking within the young group.<\/p>\n
Of the seven freshman on this year\u2019s roster, freshmen Richard Martinez (120 pounds) and Tristan Medina (106) figure to lead the way, while several other freshmen could step up and contribute.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think (Martinez) stands a chance of making state and possibly placing,\u201d said Garand.<\/p>\n
As with any young team however, the Bears figure to experience growing pains, yet such pains figure to be eased by the Bears\u2019 senior leaders.<\/p>\n
\u201cI try to show the (younger guys) the basics,\u201d said Upton. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to get the fundamentals down. (Valdez) and I try to help them a lot with that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clearly a young team, but by no means a group in over their heads, the Bears appear to have the personnel necessary to make the 2013-14 season a successful one.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur league will be tough as always,\u201d said Garand. \u201cDove Creek is in a rebuilding year, but they are always good. Ignacio is going to be tough. They did a good job of recruiting in the offseason.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those interested in catching the Bears in action are encouraged to attend the team\u2019s opening season tournament in Flagstaff on Dec. 6-7 or the team\u2019s second tournament of the year in Dove Creek on Dec. 14.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
plenty of talent on the team\u2019s 12-man roster however, this year\u2019s team should have no trouble remaining competitive. Leading the way for the Bears will be senior Ethen Upton, who, fresh off a successful football season, plans to wrestle in the 170-pound division. An extremely strong and athletic individual, Upton earned a trip to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":122636,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6362],"tags":[188],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-122635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ds-sports","tag-dolores-star"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122635","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=122635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122635"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=122635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}