As far as first seasons go, it couldn't have gone much better for Douglas head wrestling coach Lamont McCann.
McCann, who won state championships as a wrestler for Douglas in the early 80s, set up a new offseason conditioning program in the summer and kept rolling from there.
Douglas captured the school's first outright Sierra League wrestling title, going a perfect 7-0 in league, and finished second in the Northern 4A Regional championships.
"The kids just had a great season this year," McCann said. "They bought into what we were trying to do and put the work in and it paid off for them."
Senior Shane Miller, a surprise 189-pound sensation, captured the school's first state title in 12 years and won the prestigious Sierra Nevada Classic, the first Tiger to do so since McCann. He went 50-1 overall on the season.
The Tigers had seven wrestlers qualify for state and three of those - Ryan Pruitt, Jake Williams and Garrett Hekhuis - will be back next season.
At Douglas' home invitational in early January, Matt Castro, Nico Barker, Cameron Ames, Williams and Miller each took individual titles.
Douglas had 37 wrestlers in the program this season and it will lose only four seniors.
"We'll be very excited about next season," McCann said. "We do have very high expectations and we're all looking forward to seeing how the program develops.
"We'll be attending some big camps in the offseason and a couple of tournaments. Hopefully we'll have more than a handful of kids working out with us."
Douglas put together an impressive 15-2-1 overall dual record and took third as a team at the Lowry Invitational, 11th at the Sierra Nevada Classic, first at the Carson Valley Lions' Invitational, fourth at the Spring Creek Invitational and second at Alhambra, Calif.
After coming back to defeat Carson 36-31 to open the Sierra League schedule, Douglas went basically unchallenged, beating Damonte Ranch 54-15, North Valleys 46-33, South Tahoe 63-3, Hug 72-6, Wooster 60-13 and Reno 68-15.
C.J. Wynar, Nico Barker, Ryan Olsen, Matt Boyd and Joe Ramos will join Hekhuis in a strong returning lower weight class, Williams, Pruitt and Tony Ferris will form a tough returning middle class and Sean Molina will be Douglas' lone returnee in the upper weights.
n Joey Crandall can be reached at jcrandall@recordcourier.com or at (775) 782-5121, ext. 212.
