He surprised even himself on the mat last year.
Now, Kentridge’s Nick Aliment wants to keep moving forward.
“Honestly, my goal last year was just to get to regionals,” admitted Aliment.
The Kentridge junior did a lot more than that. Competing at 112 pounds, Aliment became the school’s first league champion last season since 2007. He didn’t, however, stop at the league tournament. In fact, Aliment advanced all the way to state and, once there, made his presence felt by taking seventh place.
Not bad for a kid who just began wrestling in the seventh grade.
“I did a lot better than I thought I would do,” said Aliment, who posted a solid 28-8 overall record last winter. “(The success) had to do with all the hard work I put it.”
The Kentridge standout added more work during the offseason, when the Chargers met on a weekly basis during the summer. Though Aliment is bumping up to either 119 or 125 pounds this season, he’s expecting the work to pay off once again. Hopefully with a return trip to state and, ideally, an even higher finish.
“I’m looking to at least place (at state) again,” he said. “I picked up some new things (in the offseason), so we’ll see how they work out.”
K-M DEEPER THAN EVER
Numbers are rising on the Kent-Meridian High wrestling mat.
So too is the optimism.
“We’ve got 50 wrestlers out and, for us, that’s really good,” said K-M coach Todd Owens. “Now the trick is to keep them.”
Numbers aside, the Royals also return more talent this winter than at any point during the last decade. In Jesus Valdez (103 pounds), Andrew Smith (145) and Nick Lemmon (160), the Royals are bringing back not only three three-sport athletes, but a group of wrestlers who competed at the state level a year ago. Valdez is a two-time state player who took fifth last year while both Smith and Lemmon won matches at Mat Classic.
“Selfishly, I’d like to see them wrestle all year to see what they could do,” Owens said of his three-sport athletes. “They bring a lot to school with everything they do.”
Of the three, Valdez is the highest ranked, entering the season third in the 112-pound bracket. Valdez will, however, compete at 103, where South Puget Sound League North Division standouts Ruben Navejas (Kentwood) and Steven Tompkins (103) also reside.
The combination of the three along with Kentlake’s Colton Marlowe likely will make the weight class the toughest in the league.
The Royals also are expecting to feel the impact of senior Thomas Reinhart (189) and freshmen Josh Smith (145). Smith is the younger brother of Andrew Smith (145) along with former K-M standouts Aaron Smith (now competing at Highline) and Chris Smith, who is the last Royal to win a state title, doing so at 130 pounds in 2001.
“He’s already a pretty good wrestler,” Owens said of the youngest Smith. “He’s going to do really well.”
The same can be said for the K-M team, which clearly is on the rise.
LOADED AT 103
The SPSL North is stacked top to bottom on an annual basis.
The deepest of weight classes?
While it’s a tough call, the early season nod goes to the 103-pound weight class. The bracket includes returning state champion Ruben Navejas along with state placer Jesus Valdez of Kent-Meridian and up-and-comer Steven Tompkins of Tahoma.
The three standouts are currently ranked 1-2-3 in Class 4A according to washingtonwrestlingreporter.com. In addition, Kentlake’s Colton Marlowe, a standout in his own right, simply adds more top-tier talent to the weight class.
“Our league is nails at 103 (pounds),” said Kentwood coach Ken Sroka. “With the top three (Navejas, Valdez and Tompkins), they could go 1-2-3 in the state.”
Indeed. Of the three, however, Navejas remains the heavy favorite. The Kentwood junior posted a 38-2 record en route to last winter’s state crown. As a freshman, Navejas took fifth at state. He didn’t take the summer off, either. Instead the Kentwood junior competed in the USA Wrestling freestyle and Greco-Roman national tournament in Fargo, North Dakota, where he brought home a national title.
The only wrestler to beat Navejas last year was Bryce Evans of Rogers (Puyallup). Evans, who lost to Navejas in the state championship, will be competing at 112 pounds this winter.
“(Ruben) worked really hard this summer,” Sroka said. “He didn’t sit on a state title. He’s going to be a handful for anyone who steps in his way at 103.”
NEW MAN AT KL
He has put in the time.
Now Jeremy Williams is getting his shot. After 11 years as an assistant with the Kentlake High wrestling team, Williams will be taking over for Pete Reardon this season.
“This is a big part of why I went into teaching, because I wanted to get into coaching,” said Williams, who has been with the program longer than anybody else and was simply waiting for the right time.
Reardon announced last February that he wouldn’t be back this season. In five years with the Falcons, Reardon guided the team to a 23-16 South Puget Sound League North Division record. Before Reardon took over, the Falcons had posted a 7-17 mark in the previous three years combined. The high point for the Reardon-led Falcons came in 2007, when Kentlake finished ninth at the state tournament. It’s the only time in the school’s history that the Falcons finished among the top 10 in the team standings.
“It is really tough. One of the hardest things I have ever had to do,” said Reardon. “I’ve never had to resign. It was not an easy decision. But it was the right move for my family.”
With Williams in charge, the Falcons essentially shouldn’t miss a beat. The second in charge under Jack Henderson, then Al Turnbow and, finally, Reardon, already has a coaching relationship with the Kentlake wrestlers and is looking forward to building the program into an annual SPSL North contender.
Williams also has aspirations of guiding a Kentlake wrestler to a state title, something the Falcons have yet to produce.
“I want to continue building the program. We’d like to get to the point where we are challenging for the league title. We’d like to challenge for the top 10 in the state tournament every year and get our first state champ.”
Williams will certainly have the building blocks to begin that ascension right away as standouts Colton Marlowe (103 pounds), Jeff Harjehausen (112), Tyler Potts (125), Ben Richie (140) and Sean Cavanaugh (152) all should be back this year.
“We definitely have a decent group of kids returning,” said Williams, who also assists with the KL football and track teams. “It’s heavier on the young side than the old side, but we do have some talent coming back.”
Now it’s just a matter of putting in the time.
Something Williams is plenty familiar with.
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