There is no more time for tinkering.
There is only time for perfecting and giving a maximum effort to avoid a precarious road to the state tournament.
To accomplish the easiest path, the Fallon wrestling team competes in today’s Northern Division I-A dual meet at 1 p.m. at Winnemucca Events Center to establish seeding for next week’s regional tournament in Spring Creek.
In some ways, this weekend is more important than the regional. Three or four losses puts a grappler behind the 8-ball going into regionals.
Five or six wins equates to a simpler path, although it will still be a challenge to qualify for state.
Fallon will wrestle a dual match — seven total in the two-day event — against each team in the league minus Truckee, which does not have a team this year. A wrestler’s win-loss record determines his seed for the regional tournament.
“The problem is those kids will wrestle the exact same kids next week,” Fallon coach Louie Mori said. “I would really like to get the duals back to Wednesday nights and get fans in the gym.”
Leading into today’s action, Fallon has been stricken by a string of illnesses, which forced Mori to avoid contact drills for several days. Instead, non-contact routines were ushered in and a push centering on perfecting each wrestler’s moves.
This tournament marks the first time this season Fallon’s grapplers will face every school in its league. Mori, as the team did last year, avoided going to the same tournaments as their league opponents as a way to avoid facing the same opponents each week.
The first-year coach in his second stint with the Greenwave opted for several different tournaments including one in Idaho. Mori aimed to face tougher competition to begin the season to evaluate his wrestlers going forward.
Today, though, presents a tough mental challenge for Fallon’s younger core such as Terry White, Dylan McAfee and Mason Smith.
Those three have grown throughout the season, but Mori said it is time for them, among others, to turn the corner and put themselves in a favorable position for next week.
“If they lose to three or four kids, then they will have to beat one of them to get in (to state),” Mori said. “It gives us a good idea of where they are at and what they have to do to make it.”
Each team is also allowed four additional wrestlers — in weights classes decided by the coaches — to compete. The extra grapplers are also allowed to compete in the regional and state meets, but cannot score team points.
Although they can’t score points, those grapplers can alter the outcome of the team and individual standings with each win, adding another dynamic to the tournaments.
“The focus is on the older kids,” Mori said of who may choose. “Seniors like Conner Card, Bryson Abe we can slip them in.”