Carson High junior Dominic Porter secures a head and arm throw against his opponent from Damonte Ranch earlier this week. Porter has become one of the Senators’ premier wrestlers this season.
Photo by Jeff Mulvihill, Jr. | InstaImage.
After having just a handful of wins as a freshman wrestler, Dominic Porter has turned into one of the premier heavyweights in Nevada.
In two and a half years, Porter’s strength and technique have pushed him into the upper echelons of the state ranks.
This season he’s sitting right around 30 wins and five losses.
However, the biggest change for him has been his mentality on the mat.
“I’ve gone into matches I know I can win, but I just didn’t get into the mindset for it. I just blanked and it resulted in me losing,” said Porter. “You just have to go in confident and not care who it is.”
Mat time and offseason work
Much like any profession, the way to improve is to dedicate yourself.
Day in and day out, time spent practicing is what leads to success.
Porter’s head coach Nick Redwine has seen that level of dedication from the junior.
“The number one way to get better at wrestling is to wrestle. Mat time,” said Redwine. “Over the last two and a half seasons Dominic Porter has put in hours and hours of mat time. It shows.”
For Porter, wrestling isn’t a seasonal dedication.
His offseason was filled with wrestling tournaments in different disciplines – and they weren’t necessarily on mats either.
This past summer Porter was competing outside of Northern Nevada in freestyle tournaments as well as beach wrestling in California.
“A lot of my improvement came from the summer. I am going against guys I knew were better than me. Even if I lost, it was an improvement,” said Porter. “It’s more elite wrestlers, who know what they’re doing.”
The work on the sand has been instrumental in his throws this season, which has led to a majority of his matches ending in a win by fall inside of the first period.
None of his four opponents this week could escape; his longest contest lasted 1:42.
His two wins in Wednesday’s home dual lasted 12 and 10 seconds. The latter match ended in a head and arm throw into a pin.
He immediately pointed to his offseason work.
“With the beach wrestling, it helps me a lot with my throws. Tonight (Wednesday), I wouldn’t have gotten that as good as I did if I didn’t do beach wrestling,” said Porter.
The drive has only grown in the junior, who admitted he wasn’t always in the best conditioning when he first started to wrestle.
“My freshman year, I was a little bigger, a little couch potato,” joked Porter. “I’m really proud of my growth. I realized wrestling is my sport. I grew a love for it and I just kept pursuing it. That’s made me better.”
A love of science and team success
Porter’s drive for wrestling isn’t his only pursuit, either.
The junior is in advanced placement classes at Carson High, fulfilling his desire to study sciences, specifically geology.
He said that interest has been fueled, in part, by growing up in Nevada.
“I’m really big into the Earth and rocks. We have beautiful mountains and crazy rock formations,” Porter said. “Once I was able to understand those kind of things, I saw these crystals on the ground and I thought ‘this is really awesome and I really like this.’ Ever since, I just keep getting more and more interested.”
He’s arguably the loudest member of the Carson High School wrestling team, belting out cheers for his teammates when he’s not competing.
Don’t get it twisted – Porter wants to qualify for state and place as high as he can. But he’ll be the first to admit there is more work to be done.
“Obviously, I need to do good and regionals and place at state,” Porter said. “I plan to do Reno Rumble and Reno Worlds and then beach wrestling. I do plan to go to Fargo this year and some of those bigger tournaments. I don’t know if I’ll do well, but it’s the competition I need.”
(Dominic Porter of Carson High grapples with an opponent from McQueen on Tuesday. Porter is nearing 30 wins on the season, against five losses. / Jeff Mulvihill, Jr. | InstaImage)