Wrestlers prepare to open season

The Mountain Home Tigers open their 2005-2006 wrestling season by hosting the annual Freshman-Sophomore Wrestling Tournament Saturday in Lloyd Schiller Gymnasium.

Mountain Home Tiger wrestling coach Lynn Knudson, whose squad finished seventh at the 4A State Tournament in Nampa last year, indicated this year's turnout for wrestling was good.

"We had a great turnout and we have some strong wrestlers coming back from last season. Our overall turnout is about 45."

With the experience coming back this season, Coach Knudson is hoping for good things to come.

"We were young last year, and we knew we were going to struggle a little bit in some of those heavier weight classes, but overall they did well at district time. Some of them didn't go to state, but they're back with good attitudes, and I believe good things are going to happen to these kids, because they were so young and they're still up in those weight classes and they're going to do great things for us."

Knudson is looking forward to Saturday's annual tourney, which should give them an idea of how their younger wrestlers will do.

"We're looking forward to see what our freshmen and sophomores can do. We have pretty good numbers there."

Action gets under way Saturday at 9 a.m. with wrestlers from all the 4A and 5A SIC teams as well as some other schools in the valley. Knudson hopes the crowd will come out and watch the young wrestlers.

"It's always a time to be watching some of our younger wrestlers and see how Mountain Home stacks up with some of the other schools in the valley, and it's a great opportunity for us to focus on our younger kids and just see what kind of potential that they have, and they get to see how they're going to stack up over the next couple of years, so it's always a great tournament that we start out with."

The Tiger varsity wrestlers will open their season on Dec. 14 at home against the Borah Lions.