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Coach Randy Martinez, right, shows young wrestlers proper stance positions during Junior Patriots Wrestling club practice at Liberty. Expected to feed future high school programs, the club is for elementary and middle schools students around Liberty.

By Jared Harmon

Fri, Nov 21, 2008 (12:15 a.m.)

The future could look bright for Liberty High's wrestling squad as its feeder program, the Junior Patriots youth wrestling team, continues to grow.

Now in its fifth year, the organization teaches the sport's fundamentals to young athletes in the Silverado-area. Liberty coach and Junior Patriots board member Rich Muraco is excited about the possibilities for his program.

"This is huge for Liberty wrestling because all the top level programs in town — Mojave, Cimarron-Memorial or whoever — have a feeder program like this," Muraco said. "Something like this is the reason those teams are what they are. We've seen our team grow each year and we're starting to see the benefits."

After starting with seven wrestlers in the team's first year, the club had 25 grapplers last year.

Muraco has already seen successful products of the youth team reach the high school level, like junior Mike Reveles and his brother Rudy Reveles, a sophomore.

The club takes wrestlers ages 4 through the eighth grade, and board member Alex Cortez said the sport can provide an unique life lesson that other youth sports often do not.

"Wrestling really rewards hard work," Cortez said. "You don't have to be a great athlete to see success. In football or maybe basketball, you can be a great athlete and never show up for practice and still be a great player but wrestling always favors the hardest workers."

Michael Siwiec, a 120-pound 11-year-old and sixth-grader at Bob Miller Middle School, has been with the team since its inception and is excited to hit the mats again this winter.

"When I first started wrestling I thought it was really hard, but I started to get better and now I like it a lot," Siwiec said. "I've gotten really good at sprawls and I like competing. It's real fun when you win."

The junior program is crucial in developing quality high school wrestlers.

"Wrestling isn't taken seriously as a sport in Nevada and most kids don't even learn the very basics until they get to high school," Junior Patriots head coach Randy Martinez said. "The kids who get this opportunity go into high school heads and shoulders ahead of the competition. I wish I had started this young."

Jared Harmon can be reached at 990-8922 or jared.harmon@hbcpub.com.