High school wrestling: Silver Wolves capture that elusive region title

SYRACUSE — There's a first time for everything, but typically, in the realm of sports, those things come in a fashion of chronological order.

In the case of the Fremont wrestling program — everything is topsy-turvy.

The Silver Wolves, state champions in 2003, finally captured their first region championship in school history after escaping with a 252.5-237.0 victory over Weber.

"They come to practice with one thing in mind and that's to get better every single day," said Fremont coach Cody Storey at Syracuse High Saturday night. "I felt that we've done that all season long and progressively gotten better to the point that we can compete with the best of them I believe. All the hard work is finally paying off for them."

After qualifying 11 players for the state tournament, Fremont has set itself up to carry the torch of Region 1 — which has notoriously produced elite wrestling programs throughout the years.

"I think we can surprise some people. I think we're going to be in it to win it and we can shock some upper teams," Storey said. "These kids worked hard in the offseason, they worked hard all year long. That was our goal from day one — to win the region title — it means a lot. It's the first region title that we've been able to bring home to Fremont High School."

Syracuse (233.0), Layton (232.0), Davis (165.5) and Northridge (58.0) finalized the Region 1 standings in a tournament that was extremely close up until the last matches.

Tate Calvert, a 170-pound junior from Fremont, clinched a berth to the state tournament after a gladiator showing.

After the match, he had a severely irritated right retina and his entire mouth was covered with blood, but that didn't cripple his enthusiasm.

"It's been my dream since I started wrestling. It's all I've ever wanted to do and now I'm here," said Calvert after his Rocky-like performance. "It's amazing. We've never won it; it's really exciting for the school. We've all come together and won it."

In total, 14 individuals claimed region championship medals: Fremont's Jaydon Rogers (106) and York Ash (113), Syracuse's Jake Garver (120), Fremont's A.J. Arteaga (126), Syracuse's Zane Rich (132), Layton's Ken Astle (138), Northridge's Ryan Goodwin (145), Layton's Davis Marriott (152), Weber's Mack Huntsman (160) and Devon Childress (170), Davis' Nick Casey (182) and Justin Higley (195), Fremont's Jake Van Valkenburg (220) and Layton's Carlos Turner (285).

Email: tphibbs@desnews.com