THURSTON — Thurston wrestling played host to its annual LaMont Simons Dual Tournament on Saturday and the boys team managed to sustain its undefeated streak, winning against Churchill, Mountain View, Tillamook, and most notably an out-of-state team – Class 2A Orting High School in Washington – reigning state champions for three consecutive seasons.
“Yeah, knock on wood so far,” coach Mike Simons said about the winning streak while literally knocking on a wooden desk in his classroom after the meet. “But I think the Orting Cardinals from today’s meet had won six or seven state championships overall and the last three years in a row, so they were tough. Also, we didn’t even have all of our lineup. We had a few sick kids, but so did they. So that’s just part of the sport. You put your best team out on the mat. That’s the best team they had out there today and the best team we had out there today, too.”
The boys team crashed the leaderboard with the divided varsity teams of “Thurston Red” at 23 total points and “Thurston Black” (19) finishing first and second. Orting (18) was third, followed by Tillamook (13), Mountain View (12), Tillamook #2 (9) and Churchill (7). On the girls side, Tillamook took first place with 21, Thurston (18) was second, then Bend (17), Yamhill-Carlton (8), and Mountain View (4).
Simons attributed the victory to the team’s depth and overall talent. He also stressed how impressive the results were considering the time of year.
“It’s hard over the break, some kids leave town with their families,” Simons said. “Also, illness this time of the year is particularly bad, so you just put your best team out there that you can and go wrestle. But we’re a mixed team, meaning we’re really deep. We’ve been winning tournaments back-to-back and everybody wants a piece of us. And we love the competition. We’re not afraid to wrestle anybody, it’s just a way to get better.”
Simons also had constructive feedback for his athletes. Upon reflection, he said that they still need to polish their conditioning, “bottom positioning,” and “major decisions.”
“We need to get better on the bottom,” Simons said. “We got turned (around) giving up near falls and I want to see us get a little bit more aggressive on our feet. I think a few of the matches that we lost maybe, we gave up tech(nical) falls or major decisions.
“We should close the gap on those because in dual meets, it’s tough giving up pins. You’re giving up six points. If a tech fall, you’re giving up five points. A major decision, you’re giving up four points, a regular decision, you give up three points. It’s hard to get those points back. Also, we need to improve on our conditioning a little bit. Though, right now, I’m not too worried about that. We want to be in our best shape rolling into regionals in February, but for right now, we’re going to get healed up a little bit and enjoy the break,” he said.
The tournament is particularly special to Simons as well. “LaMont Simons” – the legendary wrestling coach that the tournament is named after – is Simons’ father. The 82-year-old was seen sitting on the sidelines in a wheelchair the entire tournament, smiling, talking to the coaches around him, and absorbing the atmosphere.
“He’s in the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, the Oregon chapter,” Simons said. “He won several state titles coaching at Woodburn High School in the late 60s. He was head coach at South Albany High School for 20-something years. And then, when I took over here 22 years ago, he was retired from South Albany, but he wanted to get back into coaching, and came and helped me for a long time.”
Though Simons created a legacy of his own at Thurston, he certainly “stole ideas” from his father and had an outline from him that helped make it his own. Simons built upon his dad’s success. But he also emphasized it was a variety of role models, similar to his father, that got him kick-started as well.
“I’ve had some really good role models to try to emulate, including my dad,” Simons said. “Bruce Glenn is also a Hall of Fame coach from West Albany, and he was like a second dad to me. And I wrestled at Oregon State for legendary coach Dale Thomas, who coached for 30-something years at Oregon State, and then at one of the powerhouse programs in the state, Newburg High School. I helped out as an assistant coach up there for several years before I came here, so I’ve had a lot of good role models to see what works.”
Thurston has been hosting this annual tournament for multiple years, but this is only the second year of the honorary “LaMont Simons” title. One day, Justin Starck, Thurston’s football coach and athletic director, suggested to Simons, ‘Hey, why don’t we name this after your dad?’” Simons agreed and it’s been named “LaMont Simons” ever since.
“He doesn’t make it to much wrestling anymore,” Simons said. “So I was surprised today that he sat there all day. I thought he’d come for an hour or two, but he sat there all day and watched the wrestling, which was pretty cool.”
Up next, the Colts compete in the Northwest Dual Championships, which feature a bigger range of schools around the area.
