Zach Sanders, who was recently promoted to assistant coach for the Gophers wrestling team, captained Wednesday’s practice with Gophers wrestler Garrett Joles at the RTW Facility. Thursday concluded the camp with current University of Minnesota wrestlers Sam Skillings and Blaine Brenner.

Skillings, who will be a redshirt junior this winter, said they focused on the basics Thursday, something some young wrestlers overlook.

“Coming in here with a bunch of kids you don’t really know, it’s kind of hard to know what to go over and stuff, so we just focus on the basics and what works at the highest level,” Skillings said. “We were going over basics today, but that’s 95% of what we do at the college level. I think some of the times, kids this age can kind of overlook that stuff, so it’s important to hammer that home.

“There’s a few positions today that we ended up in five or six times just in different moves but you always come back to that same position, so it’s important to drill all those same positions over and over again.”

Staff photo by Travis Rosenau New Ulm Area wrestlers Ty Frederick, left, and Wyatt Pollard wrestle during a first-to-3 matchup at the Gophers Wrestling 2-Day Technique Camp Thursday at the Rolling Thunder Wrestling Facility in New Ulm.

Skillings, a 2019 graduate from Menomonie High School in Menomonie, Wisconsin, said he didn’t get much of an opportunity to check out New Ulm and will be back on the road for another camp Friday. Despite not touring New Ulm, Skillings complimented the RTW Facility.

“Menomonie doesn’t have anything like [this], so, definitely, the kids here are super blessed,” he said. “This is a incredible wrestling room for what it is.”

Skillings said after wrestling at 184 pounds for the Gophers last year, he will drop to 174 this season.

“This year I’m going down to 174, so I’m excited for that,” he said. “Going down to 174, shooting for that starting spot, shooting for All-American status and stuff like that. …

“I made it [174] this summer a couple times for a couple freestyle tournaments, it was definitely tough the first couple times. Last year in the summer, I was getting up to 200 and now I’ve kind of leaned back a little bit around 190. So about 15, 16 pounds before it’s all said and done. But definitely eating cleaner and just kind of reminding myself that the time is going to come when I need to go down.”

There were 46 area wrestlers grades K-12 from New Ulm, Madelia, Mankato, Lake Crystal, St. James, Blue Earth, Wabasso and Redwood Falls that took part in the camp on Wednesday and Thursday.

The RTW Facility also held a Gopher training camp back in June, with 68 wrestlers participating.

Brenner, a Stanley-Boyd graduate out of Stanley, Wisconsin, will be entering his redshirt sophomore season with the Gophers this winter and said RTW was a good host.

“Right here, Rolling Thunder, what they’ve got going on is pretty cool,” Brenner said. “They’re coming together and helping everybody in the area get better together. Not a lot of people do that, so I think it’s great that they took initiative and started something like that.”

As far as his time with the Gophers, Brenner said his redshirt freshman year last season went well and he’s looking to get on the mat more this year.

“It went good, I wrestled 149 and then I ended up growing a little so I moved up to 157,” he said. “I think this year I’m just hoping for a whole lot more mat time. Just like everybody says, everybody is going to bet on themselves. I want to be the guy, I’m going to work hard to be the guy and get out there and compete for a title.”

With Sanders taking another step up with the Gophers as an assistant coach this season, Brenner is looking forward to the motivation and energy Sanders brings.

“He’s a beast, he just loves wrestling,” Brenner said of Sanders. “I’ve never met anybody that loves wrestling as much as him. Sometimes I get sick of it and then I think of Zach and he always says, ‘You get to wrestle today, boys,’ so if you live by that every day, he brings the energy and makes you want to be out there and work hard.”

Brenner said Thursday’s practice with the area wrestlers went well and that if they kept putting in the work, good things would come.

“I think it’s a good group of young guys,” Brenner said. “If they keep at it, keep coming to camps and opportunities like this, keep coming to practice, then they’re going to be good. They paid attention, all of them, we had to get their focus together a couple of times, but they’re nothing short of the best.”

RTW welcomes boys and girls Pre-K through sixth grade to sign up on Oct. 30 this year. The RTW season begins November 13, with New Ulm team duals on Dec. 9.