After their inaugural wrestling season last year, the Community Vikings hope their returning wrestlers will help to pave the way for the newcomers as the Vikings get ready for their second season on the mat.
Coach Luke Bowling, who took over the wrestling squad just before the start of the season, knows that building a program at the school is a work-in-progress and doesn't involve just the time between the first and last match.
"Preseason has been really good," Bowling said. "All of our returning guys came back so that is a positive. So it's a matter of getting everybody back in the swing of things."
The Vikings have persevered despite some obstacles along the way.
"The big thing is numbers," Bowling said. "And you see us, we're still working out in the cafeteria."
"Next year, we're supposed to have a space where we can leave our stuff out," Bowling added. "We're borrowing space from the cafeteria, so that's a little bit more setup and takedown."
"We're still trying to establish numbers," Bowling said. "We don't really have a full squad yet even though we have more guys than we had last year. Last year we had five, and this year we have 10."
"We'd like to get where we have 15 or 20 guys and build on that," Bowling added.
"It helps to have guys that have done it before because it helps some of these younger guys know what to expect."
Despite being in just their second season, the Vikings have a schedule with schools that have been wrestling for a longer time and have built successful programs.
"For example, Tullahoma has a full varsity boys' squad, a full JV boys' squad, and a full girls' varsity squad," Bowling said. "And some of those kids have had the opportunity to wrestle since they've been in elementary school."
"If we had that opportunity, it would be nice, but you've got to start somewhere," Bowling added.
"We open up the season against Tullahoma, so it's a good way to know where we're at."
Bowling hopes to see improvement with the team as it progresses through the season.
"For the returning guys, we want to see them build on the things they learned last year and start to see sustained success," Bowling said. "We had some guys that would win a match here or there, but they weren't consistently successful."
"We want to see them be a guy that I count on to go out and get me six points and a match win," Bowling added.
"For the new guys, it's really just about getting their feet wet," Bowling said. "There's so much of it that you learn from experience. For those guys, it's having the courage to come out and try it and having the guts and the work ethic to stick to it."
Community played all of its matches last season on the road.
Bowling has battled through some obstacles to schedule one match this season at home.
"We've got one match at home. We wanted to schedule some more, but it's really tough," Bowling said.
"We share the gym with basketball and when we made the schedule, I wasn't the head coach," Bowling added. "We were trying our best to put something together that was going to get the guys the matches."
"We wanted them to have one and we tried to get a couple of others on the schedule, but we would either have had to wrestle over a break or it would have been really awkward," Bowling said.
The home match is currently scheduled with Cornersville and hopefully another team on December 16.
"We're trying to find a third team to come in and make that a tri-match," Bowling said. "For the people that are going to be here that have maybe never seen wrestling, they can see more matches."
"These kids work hard, and for a lot of them, they don't get to wrestle in front of their friends," Bowling added.
"But we have a lot of local matches locally at Forrest, Eagleville, and at Marshall County," Bowling said.
The team is currently made up of seniors Gavin Garcia, Devlin Hodges, and Alex Stanley, juniors James Bowling, Ethon Eynon, and Reed Wallace, sophomores Cody Duff and Jackson Harris, and freshmen Blaine Bowling and Ethan Garcia.
After the Tullahoma match, the Vikings travel to Forrest and Cascade for their next matches.