Laramie Plainsmen Wrestling Makes a Brief Stop at Home

After spending the first month of the season on the road, the Laramie Plainsmen wrestling team will have a chance to compete at home on Thursday.

Laramie will host Wheatland at Laramie High School. The JV action begins at 5 p.m., followed by the varsity at 6 p.m.

The Plainsmen are off to a 6-4 start in the 2020-2021 season.

Head coach Stuart Brinkman has been pleased with the effort thus far.

“They’ve been working hard every practice, and we had some (higher) expectations this year. A lot of guys returning, and we actually have a pretty good freshmen class, as well, so I’m not very surprised to have a 6-4 record right now.”

They opened with four duals at the Evanston Invitational on Dec. 11 and 12 but without a full roster due to several different circumstances. LHS lost close duals to Pinedale (39-36), Evanston, and Shoshoni (37-36). Their lone win came against Mountain View. Brinkman told KOWB some scores were not available. He said they gave up four weight classes and were missing a couple of their top wrestlers.

Brinkman said, “We knew our season was going to get better after that, and we weren’t too afraid of what happened, week one.”

Laramie finished second at the Rawlins Quad on Dec. 19. LHS beat Rock Springs 57-24 and defeated Cheyenne South 51-28, but lost to the host Outlaws, 39-33.

The Plainsmen just went 3-0 at the Bison Bonanza at South High School in Cheyenne last Saturday. They beat Burns 42-39, topped Torrington 59-21, and downed the host Bison, 65-18. Six wrestlers went undefeated on the day. They were Liam Knerr (106 lbs.), Porter Trabing (113), Connor Hobbs (120), Dakota Ledford (132), Ben Ruckman (170), and Gavin Kopp (182).

Laramie’s Adam Beauvais was awarded the Isaac Salas Spirt of a Champion Award.

Brinkman admits a lot of their competition has been 3A schools, but they’re wrestling the schedule they have.

“With that said, we still had our guys go out there and compete, and we still won matches, so we still deserved to win those.”

Now the Plainsmen make their home debut. They wrestle against Bulldogs in one of two home duals this season.

Brinkman added, “Wheatland’s a pretty tough team. They always have good middleweights that are ranked in the top four, so we still have some competition. They will be giving up some weights, so hopefully, we can still try to get our guys matches. I’m pretty excited to bring our home crowd here (to LHS) and wrestle in front of the crowd.”

Laramie will then head to Torrington for three duals on Saturday. They’ve picked up matches at the Trojan duals next week in Casper, where they will face some top teams, like Sheridan, Thunder Basin, Natrona, Kelly Walsh, and Star Valley over two days of action.

Plainsmen Swimming & Diving

Laramie will be competing in Gillette and Sheridan on Friday and Saturday.

The Plainsmen won all three of their duals against Green River, Rawlins, and Cheyenne South at the Laramie Holiday Duals on Dec. 30. Then, they finished in third place behind Lander and Kelly Walsh (1-point ahead) in the Laramie Holiday Invite on Dec. 31.

LHS will swim both of the Gillette schools and Newcastle on Friday. Then on Saturday, the Plainsmen face the host Broncs, plus Kelly Walsh and Cheyenne East at the Sheridan Saturday Invite.

Nordic Skiing

The second competition of the season for the Laramie High School Nordic skiing team will be on Casper Mountain on Saturday at 1 p.m.. It’s a 7.5km skate or freestyle race. LHS will compete against the Cody/Sheridan combined team, plus Kelly Walsh and Natrona County.

Indoor Track

The Laramie High School indoor track teams began practice back on Monday. Their season will start next week in Gillette. The team has three official meets to try to qualify for the state championships.

This year’s indoor track season has been changed due to COVID-19. Only the top eight in running events and relays and the top nine in field events will compete at the state meet. No fans will be allowed at the regular season meets. State qualifiers will get two tickets for the state championships in Gillette. They will be split by gender, with the boys’ on Feb. 27 and the girls on March 6, 2021.