2007/2008 USA COBRA MONTANA

2007/2008 USA COBRA MONTANA
DOMINATES!
SUMMARY OF THE 2007/2008 WRESTLING SEASON
IN STATE:

ALL 4 high school aged Cobras placed at state, including three State Titles. Freshman Jade Rauser, Freshman Valyen Rauser, and Junior Toby Erickson all State Champs. Freshman Britton Thompson takes 5th.

FOLKSTYLE STATE Team Title (AAU & USAW combined). Team Cobra wins prestigious 10-man team title over clubs of all sizes with 98 out of a possible 100 points. Cobra has won this title two out of the last 3 years. A clerical error in ’07 cost Cobra the title, otherwise it would be three in a row. This is the highest level of team achievement in Folkstyle wrestling available in Montana outside the school system.

10 STATE CHAMPIONS at the Folkstyle State tourney which is the largest event in Montana with over 1100 participants in 2008.

USA WRESTLING GRECO ROMAN Small Team State Title for the 3rd consecutive year. This team title was earned by a partial squad while several Cobras were in Iowa for USAW Folkstyle Nationals.

USA WRESTLING FREESTYLE Medium Team State Title for the 3rd consecutive year.

TEAM TITLES IN ALL THREE STYLES (for three years in a row*) would suggest that Cobra is the top non-school affiliated team in Montana! No other program is even close.

28 COBRA INDIVIDUAL STATE TITLES in high school, USAW and AAU combined Folkstyle, Freestyle and Greco Roman. That’s 28 state titles in 2008!

2008 USA COBRA STATE FOLKSTYLE CHAMPIONS (USAW &AAU): Grant Boggs; Cameron Alverson; Christopher Wagner; Shay Christiansen; Jacob Silberling; Jade Rauser; Valyen Rauser; Britton Thompson; Tucker Erickson; Toby Erickson

2008 USA COBRA STATE GRECO ROMAN CHAMPIONS (USAW):
Klause Rauser; Zack Idland; Kameron Rauser; Cody Jackson; Landon Bailey; Gabe Schroeck; Bryce Weatherston; Christopher Wagner ; Hayden Schrull <- Added by E.J.
2008 USA COBRA STATE FREESTYLE CHAMPIONS (USAW):
Grant Boggs; Gabe Schroeck; Cameron Alverson; Jade Rauser; Britton Thompson; Tucker Erickson; Toby Erickson

11 STATE WESTERN REGIONAL RESULTS:
11 Cobra Regional Titles in Novice, Schoolboy, Cadet and Junior divisions combined. This tally includes only full-time club members who have trained with us a minimum of 3 months. Several additional training partners also won. 7 Freestyle Regional Titles: Cody Jackson; Landon Bailey; Grant Boggs; Gabe Schroeck; Jade Rauser; Val Rauser and Toby Erickson. 4 Greco Roman Regional Titles: Landon Bailey; Grant Boggs; Val Rauser and Toby Erickson.

THIRD CONSECUTIVE year with more than twice as many Regional Champions as any other Montana wrestling program. Over the past three years, USA Cobra Montana has produced more than twice as many Regional Champions as the rest of the state COMBINED!

NATIONAL ACCOMPLISHMENTS
14 National Titles including victories on the USA Wrestling, World of Wrestling and Rocky Mountain Nationals circuits--victories from Tulsa to Reno, Cedar Falls to Denver. At USA Cobra Montana we don’t count AAU National events because the level of competition is not equivalent with the three listed circuits above (see explanation below). 13 USA Wrestling National Team berths--Val Rauser in Folkstyle and Greco;
Jade Rauser in Folkstyle and Freestyle; Gabe Schroeck in Freestyle and Greco; Grant Boggs in Freestyle and Greco; Landon Bailey in Freestyle and Greco; Cody Jackson in Freestyle and Greco; and Seth Schroeck in Greco. 22 All-American finishes in all three styles combined—Folkstyle, Freestyle, and Greco Roman. WINNERS of at least one national tournament in ’07-‘08: Caleb Bailey; Zach Schroeck; Cody Jackson; Johnny LaFountain; Landon Bailey; Lee Cannon; Grant Boggs; Bryce Weatherston; Valyen Rauser; Jade Rauser.

ALL-AMERICANS—Val Rauser, Jade Rauser and Grant Boggs earned All-American status in all three styles. Seth Schroeck, Cody Jackson, Landon Bailey, Gabe Schroeck, and Jacob Silberling earned All-American status in both Olympic styles. Hayden Schrull, Lee Cannon and Christopher Wagner earned All-American status in one Olympic style. The final tally is 9 Freestyle AA’s, 10 Greco AA’s and 3 Folkstyle AA’s.

COBRA CAMPS
BEST YEAR EVER for Cobra camps. For the 2007-2008 season, USA Cobra Montana Wrestling held nearly two dozen training camps, technique camps and mini-camps. The most noteworthy camp this season was the 8 day Regional and National Intensive. Total attendance was 54 athletes from 16 towns in 3 states. Of these athletes, 19 had previously won a national title. They held an accumulated 58 national titles between them! Just try to find that caliber in an overstuffed camp with hundreds of wrestlers or in a “super star” camp designed around a big name clinician or former wrestler. As promised, the Cobra 8 Day Intensive had the highest level of athletes in
attendance. Coaching was designed to emulate world and Olympic level training programs. Match strategy and mental preparation were covered each day. The techniques that were stressed mirrored the techniques used at the Olympic Trials. And the camp produced the highest percentage of regional placers and national all-Americans of any camp held in the Western U.S. That’s a mouthful, but completely accurate. As Vince Lombardi once said, “In sports they keep score to determine who the winner is.” When it comes to wrestling camps and training programs, the scorecard is VERY CLEAR. USA Cobra Montana Wrestling is one of the top wrestling programs in the country. AAU Clarification. Though it must be noted that some AAU events are quite competitive—Middle School National Duals or Montana Folkstyle State for example—in general AAU National events are pretty low key. A brief comparison of Montana wrestlers’ results proves that many Montana wrestlers are able to win AAU Grand Nationals for example, but then do not do quite as well in tournaments like the USAW Western Regionals, Reno Worlds or Rocky Mountain Nationals, not to mention the likes of Tulsa or Fargo. A quick check of the list of last year’s top 10 nationally ranked High School wrestlers (from Amateur Wrestling News) shows that virtually none of them participate in AAU National events while a strong percentage participate in the USAW Nationals in Fargo (with the exception of many seniors who generally have already signed a letter of intent with a college). Further, when the federal courts “ordered the U.S. Olympic Committee to terminate its recognition of the AAU as it’s Group A member and national governing body for wrestling” we at Cobra take that 1982 decision to mean the federal courts consider USA Wrestling to be the legitimate governing body for amateur wrestling—not AAU. Our Cobra athletes
train at the U.S. Olympic Training Center under the governance of USA Wrestling. AAU has actually been ordered by the court—enjoined—from being a national governing body for wrestling. And finally, when the now defunct American Adrenaline magazine and website rank-ordered national and major regional tournaments throughout the country, AAU national events were labeled primarily as tier 4 or tier 3 events. The USAW, World of Wrestling and Rocky Mountain Nationals events were almost universally ranked as tier 1 or tier 2 events. So the fact that USA Cobra Montana Wrestling doesn’t recognize AAU events in our tally of national titles is a logical and well reasoned approach.
--USA COBRA MONTANA