Titan Wrestling Sees Results

Tri-Valley Titan State Placers

6 of 15 Titan wrestlers that qualified for state placed, and two are state champs. Girls team placed 11th in overall team points and the boys team placed 6th in 3A overall team points. This is also the boys team second 2A state title in a row.

State Champions:

Charlee Noah at 125lbs

Bill Avery at 126lbs

Runner Up:

Jace Waggoner at 150lbs

Eli Noah at 190lbs

Placers:

Audry Winkles 3rd Place at 115lbs

Kaden Nokes 4th Place at 144lbs

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Wrestling for the Tri-Valley Titans is a life choice that can not be taken lightly. Students who wrestle with the Titans will spend virtually every weekend during wrestling season on the road competing at high schools around the state. And about 2 hours after school each day practicing.

Often, the away meets are too far away to make it back home to sleep in their own bed before going back for more the next day. When the team needs to spend the night they spend it together right where they competed a few hours before - on the mat.

After the day’s matches are done, and the wrestlers have cleaned themselves up, the food is broken out. This food was cooked for this trip and sent with the team. They eat as a team and then breakout their sleeping bags and sleep on the mats. Coaches, wrestlers and even the bus driver.

In the morning the routine plays out again, but in reverse order. Breakfast is eaten (which was also cooked beforehand and brought with them), the wrestlers get ready and the day’s matches begin.

Nathan Noah, the Tri-Valley Titans’ head coach, tells me that they have about 15 events on their calendar during the wrestling season. Traveling to all these matches will put about 3,500 miles on your car.

When asked directly, Nathan told me that, yes, he is the wrestling head coach. He’s reluctant to take the recognition that that title brings and quick to point out the great coaching staff that works with him, all the community support that the team receives and, of course, the wrestlers who put in the work.

Titan wrestlers are coached by some of the best around. Girls team head coach, Brittany Waggoner, has been voted District 3 Coach of the Year for three years running. Trevor Smith has been voted District 3’s assistant coach of the year last three years as well. I was able to get Nathan to admit that he also has been voted Coach of the Year in District 3 for the last three years. He repeatedly put the attention and praise on his coaching staff during our interview, and not on himself.

This wrestling team is a large operation for small towns like Cambridge and Midvale. Nathan mentioned the community support and the work that people put in and how grateful he is for all of it.

One aspect of this is support are the cooked meals mentioned above. These are prepared by a couple of moms of wrestlers on the team - Jody Reeder and Bridget Felmley. They cook a dinner and breakfast for each away meet with food purchased through the team’s fundraisers. It’s my understanding that these aren’t typical ‘sack lunches’ - they’re a full meal for about 25 wrestlers and coaches.

Abby Ochoa is the bus driver taking this team wherever their meets are - from Halfway, Oregon to Lewiston to Twin Falls and points in between. In addition to being the bus driver, she is also one of the most visible boosters of the team. After each meet she posts her pictures to social media free of charge and for all to share. She also sleeps on the wrestling mats with the team when they spend the night away.

Abby also enjoys scrapbooking and creates individual scrapbooks for each senior. At the end of season banquet Abby gives each Senior a scrapbook filled with pictures of their Tri-Valley wrestling career. She makes these in her own time with her own resources. She tells me that the wrestlers really look forward to seeing them and will try to get sneak peaks before they are presented to them.

Titan wrestling hasn’t made it this far on accident. In addition to the hard work put in by all involved, there has been thought put in to the creation of a ‘pipeline’ of wrestlers starting with the North Country Wrestling Club with wrestlers as young as about six. As the young wrestlers grow up, they then can wrestle with the Titan Junior High team before moving on to the High School team.

Girls wrestling as a high school sport in Idaho has only been around since the 2021-2022 school year. Since the participation numbers are lower than the boys, the girls are not organized into districts like the boys are. As a result, girls wrestling for Tri-Valley compete against any size school, large or small, from across the state.

Charlee Noah went 43-0 in her matches this season from opponents all around the state and won the state championship at 125 pounds. When Noah won the Reno Tournament of Champions this season, she was designated a High School All American. This is first for Tri-Valley according to Coach Noah.

I was able to speak with state champion Bill Avery and his father, Matt. Matt introduced Bill to wrestling at about six years old and he has been busy ever since. When I asked about how many miles he has put on his car, Matt responded “Oh, honestly, I have lost count of the amount of miles, and fuel, and time, and energy, and, you know, frankly, it doesn’t really matter...all I cared about is the development,” referring to Bill’s development as a wrestler and as a young man.

Matt wrestled in High School and enjoyed it. He said he started Bill early in wrestling to prepare him for life and that it “teaches boys to become men” and that “it was just the way I knew how to help develop him...to be the best version of himself he could be. So there’s a lot of ways to do it, but wrestling was the way I understood how to do it. ...That’s just this beautiful sport. It teaches you all that.”

When I asked Bill what he thought of all of his father’s confidence in him and the support he has given, he said he is grateful.

Coach Nathan Noah repeatedly told me how grateful he is both for his coaching staff and the community and parental support the team receives. The coaching staff that he would like to be sure and publicly thank are Brittany Waggoner, Trevor Smith, Jake Waggoner and Mark Moura. The community support comes in many forms and he is grateful for all of it.

He is also proud of his gladiators as he calls them. He spoke highly of every one of them and easily ticked off their wrestling statistics and what firsts they have earned for the Tri-Valley team.