Image provided by: Clackamas Community College; Oregon City, OR
About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 17, 2018)
Wrestlers roll out new mats STORY AN D PHOTO BY JACOB THOMPSON SPORTS EDITOR @SPORTSEDTHOMPS Clackam as Com m unity C o lle ge ’ s wrestling program is one of the best college wrestling program sin the nation with six dual-meet national championships. It’ s hard to believe, such a powerhouse program was b u ilt w hile p ra cticin g out of a 1,500-square-foot storage closet. Now the Cougars have a practice facility that is fit for a champion.. In the second story of Randall Hqll, the new mat room used space where rarely-used classrooms sat vacant for most' of the year. At roughly 3,000 fee t, the new mat room is twice the size of the original mat room and logistically is a lot better for Head Coach Josh Rhoden’ s program. With the limited space of the old mat room; the coaching staff had to think of creative ways to get practice time with their team. “ We have ran two p ractices each afternoon, rented th e high school facility at Oregon City [High “ It means so much to Coach School] and split workouts between R h o d e n ,” Orrino said. “ He has weight room and w restling room worked countless hours and years in order to create a safe practice for this day to come and we couldn’ t environm ent,” Rhoden said in an be happier for h im .” interview with the Clackamas Print To Rhoden, the facility feels like last May. validation of the hard work people Rhoden m entioned that m ost in and around the program have put recruits and recruits’ parents who in to building,a winner. v isite d the cam pus p revio u sly “ This means a great deal to this were amazed th at the program program in so many ways,” Rhoden accomplished what they did in the said. “ In some ways- it ’ s a nod to old mat room. a job well, done to the a th le te s, Sophomore Braedon Orrino made coaches and adm inistrators who his decision to come to Clackamas helped this program succeed and not based on the facilities, but on evolve to what it is jnow.” Rhoden’ s coaching. The new mat room is n ’ t just “There is no place or coach I would . benefiting the wrestling program, rather be w ith ,” Orrino said. “ The b u t also s e lf-d e fe n s e p h ysical lower facilities, I feel like, is what education classes that will use the makes us so tough. ” space that before,the construction . But Orrino is glad for the new was an unutilized space for the last facility because of the work Rhoden two to three years, according to put into the project. Athletic Director Jim Martineau. “ This was a super low cost, high impact restructure of classrooms,” Martineau said. “ We knocked down some w alls, moved some offices from one end to the other and created a space where they can get more wrestling team members in practice for sure, but we can also get bigger ¿elf-defense classes so i t ’ s a win-win for sure.” As far as a bump in recruiting due to the new mat room, Rhoden might have trouble accomplishing that, as he has already had; five straight top- five recruiting classes, fin ish in g w ith the second best recruiting class of all non-Division I schools this year. That ranking accounts for all D iv is io n -II, Divisuon-111, NAIA and Junior College programs. Rhoden added jokingly that with the new mat room it will ho longer be the last place he takes visiting recruits. ■■SB I ■ ..... W isillä B j » Ì ! _____ _ - U. . . . ------__ -—----- ----- ,------ ------ ,, ... .......______ V I'--, --- Wrestlers Jason Shaner (top) and Layn Pannkuk ( bottom) battle on the new mats during their 6 a.m. practice on Tuesday, Oct. 16. Clackamas f lin t ------------------------- !— ---------------- ------------ th e c la c k a m a s p rin t.c o m _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - O c t o b e r 17, 2 0 1 8
