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Joel Reichenberger

Joel Reichenberger's column appears Sundays in the Steamboat Pilot & Today. Contact him at 871-4253 or e-mail jreichenberger@SteamboatToday.com.

Steamboat Springs — The Steamboat Springs High School wrestling team was a joke when I first started covering prep sports in the area.

It wasn’t funny in a mean-spirited way, but it was tough to look at the team picture of that squad — two athletes, two coaches — and not think, “Wow. Really?”

That’s what amazes me so much about the 2011-12 version of that same team. In 2008, Sailors wrestling seemed headed for extinction, the program dwarfed in participants and prominence by even smaller schools Hayden and Soroco. This winter, though, the program certainly is as strong as its intra-county counterparts, and it quickly is growing more powerful.

Wrestling in Steamboat often seemed similar to how soccer is in many parts of the United States. Soccer programs for middle school and junior high students were stacked with athletes, but that never translated to strong or even existing high school programs.

I played soccer when I was in elementary school. It didn’t even cross my mind after age 11.

Year after year, Steamboat’s middle school and junior high wrestling teams would register great results in tournaments throughout the region. But after eighth grade, athletes failed to make an impact at the high school level. Although the team never was down to just two wrestlers again, it was uncompetitive, and the town’s high school students simply seemed uninterested.

It’s become evident that the tide was changing and that this year, the tide has come in.

It hasn’t been a smooth run. Steamboat’s Casey Williams made state as a freshman, and it seemed he was poised not only to return as a sophomore but also to bring along some teammates last year.

But the team’s focus drifted at the season’s crucial moment, and that didn’t happen.

This year, I expect something different.

This year’s team has a couple of leaders, wrestlers capable of strong runs through next month’s regional tournament and to the podium at state. Nathan Parks, at 120 pounds, and Williams, now at 152 pounds, are juniors with the savvy to get it done.

Cole Sittig, at 220 pounds, and Brandon Yeager, at 195, are among half a dozen other Sailors with good chances at wrestling at the state tournament in Denver.

Just how far any of those athletes go won’t change this team’s trajectory, though.

Steamboat’s certainly not among the state’s best teams. It was uncompetitive in a home triangular last week, and against any premier team, it will struggle.

It’s come a long way, though, and that’s the message that rang clearest when I saw the team play Thursday.

Four years ago, the Steamboat wrestling team could have traveled to an event in a Prius. It now takes a bus, and that is a major compliment to coach Shane Yeager and to the team itself.

To reach Joel Reichenberger, call 970-871-4253 or email jreichenberger@SteamboatToday.com