Carson High didn’t have far to look for its new head wrestling coach, but the process took a lot longer than expected.
Justin Shine, a 2000 CHS graduate and an assistant on Paul Carter’s staff last year, was recently named to the post.
“It’s been a long road,” Shine said before greeting his wrestlers on Monday afternoon. “I’ve wanted to do this (coach here) for a long time.”
Shine, who coached two years at Douglas, had to work out some logistics before he was able to accept the job offer.
“I have a new job,” he said. “I went from fighting fires for the Bureau of Land Management and having winters off to working 8 to 5 behind a desk for the state. I was able to flex my schedule and work from 7 a.m. to 3:30.”
Shine suffered a knee injury, and he was unable to fight fires any longer.
Shine is being assisted by Morgan Ovard and Nick Redwine. Former CHS wrestlers Ricky Duarte, Nick Schlager and Clint Treadway are also lending a hand. Former coach Tim McCarthy is helping Shine in more of an administrative capacity.
The new CHS coach has inherited a solid team. He lost Nolan Shine and Brady Rivera to graduation, but returns plenty of solid wrestlers including regional champ and state runner-up Brady O’Keefe (138, 145), 220-pounder Sheldon Miller, who was third at regionals and fourth at state as a heavyweight, and Brandon Basa, who was second at regionals and third at state at 113s last year. O’Keefe was 30-3 in the regulr season, Miller was 25-13 and Basa was 29-10.
“We have a good team this year,” Shine said. “We have a lot of returnees.”
Besides the aforementioned trio, there’s 106-pounder Terin Keller (20-14 regular season and fourth at regionals), Kyle Rudy (2-2) at 120 or 126, Nathan Mersino (22-15 regular season ) at 132, Jake Roman (5-11) at 138s, Kellen McDermott at 145, Jarod Butler (7-6) at 152, Abel Carter (17-19), who was fourth at regional at 160, Kevin Rusler (13-14) at 170, Connor Sievers (28-13) at 180s, Corey Jasper (6-13) at 195 and Sam Haight (heavyweight).
Other wrestlers in the program returning are Connor Chech (220), Darryl Heyward (132, up from JV), Austin Rudy (152), Jesse Case (160), Skyler Duncan (138), Adam Santos (152), John Rowe (180) and Ethan Lepire (113).
Senior Isaiah Prater, a first-year CHS student from North Carolina, will wrestle heavyweight. Shine said Spencer Rogers, the No. 1 seed at 133 pounds last year, opted not to wrestle this year.
Shine was unsure of the status of Jordan Aikins.
O’Keefe hopes for another appearance at the state meet.
“There are colleges watching him,” Shine said. “He has pretty amazing ability.”
Basa will stay down at 113. He weighed 112 on Tuesday afternoon.
“He had to give up a lot of weight last year to people,” Shine said. “He was always at the low end of his weight class. If he can stay at 113, that’s the best weight for him.”
Miller had to wrestle up last year, sometimes giving up 30 or 40 pounds.
“Going down in weight is always better,” Shine said. “He’s starting to mature physically and growing into his body.”
Carson, which finished second to Damonte Ranch last year, hosts the Mustangs Dec. 9 in the Sierra League opener.
It was a controversial match last year, because, according to CHS officials, Damonte refused to move the match so Carson could be at full strength after football season.
“I haven’t mentioned anything about it,” Shine said. “We’ll be at full strength this year, so we’ll see how it goes.”