ARLINGTON — Jeremy Nygard and Gavin Rork are a study in contrast on the wrestling mat.
Nygard, a junior who has competed around the country in USA Wrestling events and in Europe as part of an exchange program with German athletes, is a hybrid of American folk-style and European freestyle. He can take you down just as easily as ride you out. Wrestling is his only sport, and he has the classic build — compact and explosive.
Rork, who burst on the scene as a freshman this season, does not have the resume of Nygard but is a quick study. He is a mat wrestler, racking up pins by the handful and using his long arms to cinch opponents in cradles. He will be a center fielder on the baseball team this spring and is long and lean.
With all those differences between them, Nygard and Rork are similar in three areas that make them unique.
They are both contenders for a 3A state championship, they both weigh 126 pounds, and they both wrestle for Arlington High School.
Obviously, only one of them can win the top prize when Mat Classic XXVII begins Friday in the Tacoma Dome, but the fact the road to a title might go through a teammate is a situation unique to wrestling, a team sport during the regular season that shifts to the individual side once the postseason begins.
“They’ve both been really mature about it, and they’ve made it very easy for me,” Arlington coach Rick Iversen said. “We’re just really lucky to have both of those kids.”
During the regular season, Iversen deployed both Rork and Nygard in his dual-meet lineup. Rork wrestled at 126 pounds and Nygard slotted in at 132, with both enjoying tremendous success. Rork suffered just one defeat during the regular season — against a wrestler from Idaho on Jan. 10 at the Panther Classic in Snohomish — and drew confidence from beating then top-ranked Brahm Trujillo of Auburn Mountainview in the semifinals of the Edmonds Invite on Dec. 6.
“I came in knowing that I was decent, that I had wrestled for a while, and would beat the kids that didn’t know much,” Rork said. “But I didn’t think that I was going to be this successful till that first tournament. Everyone was expecting him (Trujillo) to just kill me. When I beat him, it gave me a big boost of pride that’s really taken me through this whole year.”
Nygard suffered just two defeats in the regular season, both coming against Decatur’s Leviticus Arizpe. But since Decatur is a Class 4A school, Nygard won’t see Arizpe this postseason.
Nygard has some unfinished business at Mat Classic this season after taking third place at 106 pounds last year as a sophomore.
In the semifinals, Nygard lost a 1-0 decision to Moses Lake’s Cooper McCullough, who in an odd bit of symmetry went on to lose to Chiefs teammate Trey Long in the final.
“I really expected myself to win last year, and it was a real heartbreaker losing a match that I should have won,” he said. “There’s a lot of emotions coming back this year. I’m looking for redemption.”
Whether Nygard — who captured a regional championship on Saturday to go along with his district crown — has to defeat his teammate and friend to find that redemption is yet to be seen.
Rork lost a 5-4 overtime decision to Edmonds-Woodway’s Jordan Lindamood in the regional semifinals on Saturday, but came back to take third place. He enters the state tournament with a record of 37-3, which includes a loss to Nygard by injury default in the sub-regional final on Feb. 7.
Because of how they placed at regionals, Rork and Nygard are on opposite sides of the state bracket, meaning that unless they both lose and meet in the consolations they won’t face each other until the state finals. Interestingly, Rork gets a rematch with Trujillo in the first round.
Nygard wrestled at 132 during the regular season to help the team, but never felt totally comfortable there, and had a plan in place all season to drop to 126 for the postseason.
“Guys were a head taller than me and stronger than me,” said Nygard, who didn’t let the size disadvantage stop him from amassing a record of 36-3. “The two-pound weight allowance means I only have to get down to 128 to qualify for 126, which is easy for me. Now I’m the same size as these guys and I’m not at a disadvantage anymore. I know I’m stronger than some of these guys. I’ve gotten down to where I need to be.”
Rork, who Iversen thought might wrestle at 120 this season, continues to grow, so much so that there were discussions about him moving up to Nygard’s 132-pound spot for the postseason and eliminating the chance of the two wrestling each other.
Rork scuttled those plans.
“I thought about it and I was just thinking, ‘Why?’” he said. “I’ve been really successful at 126, and if Jeremy wants to come to 126, that’s all right with me. I’ll wrestle him.”
This laid-back attitude is what Rork is all about, and Iversen said it’s one of the primary reasons for his success in his first prep season.
“I think that if Gavin made the state finals, we won’t see much difference in his demeanor than if he was wrestling in a JV tournament,” Iversen said. “He just takes everything in stride and gets after it. I’ve had at least three people say to me that there’s something about the way he walks into the center of that mat. He has a presence about him.”
With the possibility of Nygard and Rork having to face each other looming on the postseason horizon, Iversen curtailed the amount of training they did together, and the two never went at each other full-bore in the practice room. That doesn’t mean that they don’t know each other’s tendencies.
“He knows me pretty good wrestling-wise, and I know what he likes to do pretty good also,” Rork said.
Nygard acknowledged that this setup is not ideal, but it’s the hand he and Rork have been dealt.
“It (stinks) that we have to wrestle each other, but at the same time, it’s not a team sport,” he said. “There’s nothing I would hold back against him, and I have a bunch of confidence in myself. I just go out and wrestle my way, and he just has to learn to stop it. I’m not going to let him be my friend, and I’m not going to go easy.
“We’ll just wrestle our hearts out, and there’ll be no hard feelings either way.”
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