Young Highlands wrestling program ready for next step

By: HSSN Staff
Tuesday, January 1, 2019 | 8:57 PM

Previous Next

Previous Next

Jrake Burford and Brock White sometimes consider the future of Highlands wrestling a few years from now, when their younger brothers — veterans of the national circuit — join them in high school.

It’s a bright future to picture, one in which Highlands plans to become a perennial contender for WPIAL championships. But until then, the older brothers find themselves a key part of the Golden Rams’ present.

A young Highlands team, bolstered by freshmen like Burford and White and energized by a return to Class AA after two difficult seasons in Class AAA, hopes to begin the new year as strongly as it ended the old one. The Golden Rams (7-5, 1-1 Section 3-AA) are contending for their first WPIAL playoff berth since 2011, when many of their wrestlers attended elementary school.

“I think the main thing is just taking it step by step, match by match,” Burford said. “Our team is young, so (we can’t) get overexcited or something like that. We just need to take it one match as a time, week by week, just focus at practice about that match that week and nothing else.”

Highlands knows all about step-by-step processes, as it reflects the program’s reality over the last several years. The school didn’t field a team in 2013 and after reforming in 2014, competed independently of the WPIAL for the next two years before getting to rejoin a section in 2016.

WPIAL realignment bumped the Golden Rams up to Class AAA in 2017 and 2018, and they went 1-9 in Section 3-AAA competition before the newest wave of realignment allowed them to drop back down to AA this season.

“We’re taking things in the right direction,” Highlands coach Grant Walters said. “Being up in AAA was just hard because of numbers. Coming from a school that graduates anywhere from 220 kids to 240 kids, and you’re only pulling maybe four or five a class, at most you’re only looking at 20 kids.

“Up in AAA, they’re pulling a lot of kids and filling their weight classes. … They just keep reloading, so I would lose a lot of points because I didn’t have a person to fill a weight class or I would have a first-year wrestler.”

Highlands doesn’t have an official junior high wrestling program the way many other schools do, but Walters began working with younger wrestlers several years ago, and they’re beginning to filter up to the high school team. The Golden Rams have two seniors and thus are getting most of their production from younger wrestlers.

More and more of those wrestlers, like Burford’s and White’s brothers, will join the varsity in the next few years. Those younger wrestlers practice with the varsity and compete at tournaments on the weekend.

“Between the 10th-grade group I have and the ninth-grade group I have, the eighth-, seventh- and sixth-grade groups I have, I have a good group of kids that have been competing together for a long time,” Walters said.

After a narrow loss to Valley in its season opener, Highlands won its first section game since 2016-17 with a rout of South Allegheny. The Golden Rams also earned a pair of third-place finishes at the North Hills Duals and Sharpsville Duals despite being the only Class AA team competing.

“It’s a lot harder, but it’s good for us,” Burford said. “Being the only AA or section team there and having good competition does nothing for us except make us better. It can’t hurt us, it only helps us.”

Last week Burford finished second in the 113-pound weight class at the Steve DeAugustino Classic at West Mifflin, and sophomore heavyweight Jeremiah Saunders placed fifth.

Four freshmen (Burford, White, Bryan Randolph and Tyler Thompson) and three sophomores (Nelson, Evan Henry and Jeremiah Saunders) competed for Highlands at the West Mifflin tournament. They were joined by juniors Blake Clark, Charles DeAngelo and Jacob Taliana and senior Ethan Jones.

Walters is looking for continued improvement as the season continues, and Highlands will get a significant test of that Wednesday as No. 1 Burrell visits for a Section 3-AA match. The Bucs, after all, have won the past dozen WPIAL Class AA championships.

“Burrell is a true test. Everyone wants a piece of Burrell, like myself,” said Walters, a Burrell graduate and former Bucs wrestler. “I want to see what the heck we can do with the guys that I have.

“I know what I have coming back next year. Burrell always reloads, and Josh (Shields) is a very good coach. You can’t expect anything less than a solid, complete lineup from him, but I want to be in that same shoe. That’s my goal as a coach: I want to be in the same shoe as Burrell. I want to be able to have the other team say, ‘We’re going up against a solid team … they have a solid team every year.’ ”

Doug Gulasy is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Doug at dgulasy@tribweb.com or via Twitter @dgulasy_Trib.

Tags: Highlands