Reminders

Team Shoes - Shoes are on the way!  Get the money ($70) in now.

Weight Certification - For those that have NOT done the weight certification yet, there will be one this Sunday at the Central High School wrestling room at 11:00am.  This is located on Central's East Campus.  You'll need:

• 2 forms filled out/signed
• $10
• Shorts

Official Start to the Season - Next Monday, November 3rd marks the first official day of wrestling season for our squad.  Practice is EVERYDAY from 4:30-6:45pm.  Do NOT miss practice for ANY reason!

Athletic Clearance - Clearance to participate in athletics is required through the Clovis High Athletic Office.  This includes getting your physical examination taken care of.  If you do not have this done and the paperwork completed & turned in as of Monday, November 3rd, you will not practice until it's completed.  If you miss practice because of this, you will not compete in events.

22-Hour Round Trip Successful

Though it wasn't how we planned it (and with us it usually isn't), the trip to Cerritos College for the pre-season Halloween Open was a huge success.  24 kids made the journey, bringing back a ton of both hardware and more importantly, experience.  We had a couple minor setbacks injury-wise but nothing that will keep kids out long or take our eyes off the prize ahead.  Here were the Cougar placewinnners.

In the Varsity Division:

4th - Madison Gambrell

2nd - Ben Omata

2nd - Clinton McAlester

3rd - Jon Gay

2nd - Alec Dieter

3rd - Ben Kelley

3rd - Scott Sakaguchi

6th - Cameren Kelley *injury default

1st - Tyler Ceremello

6th - Zach Nevills *technically 2nd and undefeated

2nd - Tommy Burriel

1st - Jesus Castandea

In the Frosh/Soph Division:

2nd - Andy Ia

1st - Daniel Durant

3rd - Brady Bersano

7th - Christian Velarde

2nd - Tyler White

2nd - Dakota Gordon

2nd - Christian Jackson

National Rankings

The pre-season national high school team rankings have been released by Amateur Wrestling News. For the 2nd consecutive year, Clovis HS is ranked in the Top 40. However this year, we’re going to see the real deal up close and personal at the POWERade Tournament on December 29th & 30th. Two of the top-rated Pennsylvania schools, Central Dauphin (2007 & 2008 AAA State Champions and a favorite in 2009) and Shady Side Academy (2008 AA State Champions and this year’s favorite in 2009), will headline the field and give us a feel for where we’re really at nationally.

The only other California school in the pre-season rankings is Selma at #35. Pennsylvania leads the nation with 7 teams ranked in the Top 40 nationally, including 5 in the Top 15 spots.


Amateur Wrestling News – Top 40 Prep Teams

1. Blair Academy (New Jersey)
2. St. Paris Graham (Ohio)
3. Northampton (Pennsylvania)
4. Central Dauphin (Pennsylvania) – POWERade Team!
5. Apple Valley (Minnesota)
6. St. Edward (Ohio)
7. Wyoming Seminary (Pennsylvania)
8. Catoosa (Oklahoma)
9. Huxley Ballard (Iowa)
10. Montini Catholic (Illinois)
11. Iowa City West (Iowa)
12. Central Mountain (Pennsylvania)
13. Massillon Perry (Ohio)
14. Bishop Lynch (Texas)
15. Cumberland Valley (Pennsylvania)
16. Eastern Regional (New Jersey)
17. Don Bosco (Iowa)
18. St. Mark (Delaware)
19. Shady Side Academy (Pennsylvania) – POWERade Team!
20. Brandon (Florida)
21. Simley (Minnesota)
22. Providence Catholic (Illinois)
23. Clovis (California)
24. Wausau West (Wisconsin)
25. Roseburg (Oregon)
26. Goddard (Kansas)
27. Reynolds (Pennsylvania)
28. High Point (New Jersey)
29. Oak Park (Missouri)
30. Colonial Forge (Virginia)
31. McDonogh (Maryland)
32. Holt (Missouri)
33. Flathead (Montana)
34. Waverly-Shell Rock (Iowa)
35. Selma (California)
36. Campbell County (Wyoming)
37. Christiansburg (Virginia)
38. Oak Park River Forest (Illinois)
39. S. Dade (Florida)
40. Havre (Montana)

Thanks to our Coaches

On behalf of all the parents, I wanted to thank the all the coaches that were coaching at the Halloween Open this weekend!! Our boys are so lucky to have such a dedicated and talented group of coaches! If you have a moment, go to cloviswrestling.com and click on Staff, you will begin to understand why our boys are champions!!

For a complete list of results, go to TMI.150M.com - Find the Halloween Open and Click on Varsity or Fr/Soph and you will see the completed brackets.

Nice way to start the season boys! Keep up the hard work!!

Cindy McAlester

Halloween Open Details

As planned, the team will be traveling down to the Halloween Open (10/25) at Cerritos College this Saturday for a tune-up, preseason event. It's a great tournament and the kids had lots of fun last year on the trip. However, details regarding the trip have changed due to unforseen district policies. For the wrestlers going, there are two options:

(1) Travel down on Friday night with your parents or another team member's parents, stay in a hotel (of your choice), and meet the team at the tournament at 8:00am on Saturday morning.

(2) Meet at Coach Tirapelle's house at 3:45am on Saturday morning and travel down with the coaches in vans.

The team is precluded from traveling down on Friday and staying overnight in a hotel, but parents may do so. With either option, we will be wrestling at the tournament on Saturday, meeting at Cerritos College at 8:00am, and traveling back late Saturday night at the conclusion of the event. Please start making arragements if you plan to travel down on Friday night. Otherwise, plan to be at Coach Tirapelle's house VERY EARLY (3:45am) on Saturday!

Flowrestling is the ULTIMATE Resource

If you have never been to Flowrestling, now is the time to not only visit the site, but make it a bookmark.  Only a decade ago, these types of resources were not available, especially to wrestlers in California.  I should know (ok, it was a little over a decade ago but who's counting).  We had no idea what real intensity was, or what it meant to go into a practice like you're going into a fight.  We only understood wrestling at the high school level and that was the pinnacle until...  Unfortunately for us poor souls, we had to just walk into our first college practice blindly and proceed to get the living snot beat out of us for weeks on end, until we "figured it out".  The Internet and more specifically, Flowrestling, have changed that.

Now, as we teach what it takes to be a successful wrestler, our wrestlers have tools to use and examples to follow.  We talked about 'intensity' in our wrestling room yesterday and what it means to put in 'time' vs. 'quality time'.  Take 10 minutes to watch this typical practice in the University of Iowa wrestling room, the defending Division I NCAA Wrestling Championship Team.  Watching something like this let's you know how much harder & further you can push yourself, and how much higher you can go in this sport if you truly aspire to reach the top.  If we can bring only 1/2 of this intensity to our room daily, we will be an unstoppable force in high school wrestling.

Upcoming Important Events/Reminders

Team Shoe Order - If you need/want new shoes for the upcoming season, Clovis Wrestling has secured a team discount.  Shoes are available to try on this week only as all orders will be placed this Friday, October 17th!  If you want to order shoes, see Coach Tirapelle to try on a sample pair for sizing and let him know this week!  Shoes are the Asics Cael V3.0 (White/Navy/Gold) and will cost team members $70.

Team Schedule Poster - If you've been collecting business card advertisements, they are due to Cindy McAlester by Friday, October 17th!  The poster picture will be taken soon and the posters printed to get the competed poster out by the start of the season.  If you can help secure an ad this week ($150 per ad), please do so to help the kids!

Halloween Open Trip - Wrestlers wishing to compete in the Halloween Open next Saturday, October 25th need to confirm this week.  We have a limited number of spots due to travel arrangements.  Invitations will be extended this week to wrestlers who have fulfilled workout requirements this past Spring, Summer, & Fall.

Team Meet & Greet - The Team Meet & Greet has been set for Saturday, November 15th.  Details, including pot luck sign up, will follow shortly but please save the date.

Elementary & Intermediate/High School Takedown Tournaments - This is our first fundraiser/competition of the year, set for Friday & Saturday, November 21st & 22nd.  Details from the parent coordinators - Skip Dieter, Cindy McAlester, Kerri Nevills - will follow but please set aside some time to work these events.  In order to continue to compete at the highest level, our program needs significant funding.  These fundraisers allow your kids the best opportunities available.

Wrestling Poster

****UPDATE****

We need all business card ads in by October 17th!! Adam has committed his team from Merrill Lynch, Shelli Sakaguchi has her ad in and mine is in as well.... Dave Jackson has committed two ads..

We want to get to print in next couple of weeks so we can get the posters out before the season starts!!!

Thank you!! ,,, any questions please call 289-4351

Cindy McAlester

Eight in '08 - Available Via Internet

If you missed the two-hour DVD production of last year's historic run to an eighth state title, you can now catch the entire documentary online at the Clovis Wrestling website. Watch Eight in '08 in its entirety, divided conveniently by chapters, on your home computer to relive the magic of last season.

October Team Update

Now that letters have been sent out and people are becoming aware of the blog, I thought I'd give an update of the team's progress this pre-season.

First, great work on saving as it looks like the POWERade Trip is a 'GO' as 16 wrestlers have turned in the required deposit!  It's going to be an incredible experience for the boys and a chance to showcase our program to the entire country.  As I mentioned before, the POWERade Christmas Classic (www.poweradewrestling.com) is rated the 4th best high school tournament in the United States.  We'll need to bring our 'A' game but I'm confident our group is up to the challenge.

Through the first 5 weeks of the pre-season, I can't remember a group putting in more effort in the weight room.  With each new challenge, like this year's new & improved, "no joke" weight program, the boys have brought their intensity and commitment up another level.  I know that no other team in the state is lifting as hard as we've lifted this off-season and it's going to show on the mat, both with our physical development and the results of our wrestling.  This will be the most developed, strongest pound-for-pound group we've ever had at Clovis HS.  We need to maintain this fire & intensity into and through the wrestling season.

As we creep into October, the focus slowly needs to shift towards wrestling.  Starting next week, we'll be wrestling on Tuesdays & Thursdays to ease into the grind of the season.  We'll still be lifting weights on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, but that will slowly phase out as we approach November.  All athletes not in a Fall sport are expected to attend ALL days from now forward.  This sport is one that takes a lot of commitment, hard work, and sacrifice.  We don't have the best program around because we take shortcuts.  Being part of the Clovis Wrestling team means making a commitment to excellence, and that will require all the workouts that we schedule.

For a first practice competition, we will be taking a group down to Cerritos Community College for the Halloween Open on October 25th.  Last year, it was a fun trip and the kids got a lot out of the experience.  We'll go down together on Friday evening, wrestle Saturday, and drive back Saturday evening.  If you plan join the team on the trip, the entry fee into the tournament is $15.

An excellent September needs to be followed by an excellent October.  We're on our way to where we need to be.

Save The Date

Skip Dieter came up with a great idea this year!! Meet & Greet the Wrestlers!!!...
We will forward details.. but save the date for November 15th!!! We will be having a potluck with menu and sign ups to follow.

This is a great opportunity to come meet the 2009 Clovis High Wrestling Team & Coaching Staff!!

Parents this is one week before the Takedown tournament. Great time to meet your fellow parents... season is long, it's nice to get to know each other... we will be spending a lot of time together,,,,,,,,,,

Keep checking in for updates!!

9 in 09