Shorthanded Crew: Without a full lineup, the Royals aren’t surrendering. They’re banding together.

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Eastern Hancock wrestlers work on a drill during a recent practice. (Tom Russo | Daily Reporter)

CHARLOTTESVILLE — The Eastern Hancock wrestling team isn’t built to win many dual meets.

With nine competitors on the roster, seven to eight Royals wrestling varsity and no one light enough to fill out the team’s 120-pound weight class or lower, the numbers simply don’t add up.

With forfeits alone, the Royals face an automatic 18-point deficit every time they walk onto the mat. Training is just as perplexing, at times, senior 132-pounder Trey Brown emphasizes.

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In years past, when the team had more than enough bodies in the wrestling room, switching up from one drill partner to the next was seamless.

Now, Brown is stuck seeing the same face, though a familiar one, in his good friend and senior teammate, Ethan Boyer at 138.

“Obviously, having more guys would help because you can see more than one person, but 132, 138, 145 is close enough,” Brown said. “It’s really different. I’ve been with my friend Ethan Boyer for three years straight, and we’d go off and on, but now I don’t have anyone else to go to.

“We’re so small, so we don’t have anyone else to switch to. It’s different.”

An 11-7 team a year ago under former head coach Keith Oliver, the Royals won a program-record 22 duals in 2014-15 and never dropped below five since 2004-05.

This year, they have one against Randolph Southern, who only had two wrestlers, proving Eastern Hancock isn’t alone in their plight.

But, the Royals aren’t giving up due to the team’s recent dip in participation numbers, nor are they using being shorthanded as an excuse.

There’s more at stake for Brown, Boyer, senior Tyler Vandervliet (182) and junior Avery Wills (152). The Royals are changing the culture behind their collective 68 wins in their 127 individual matches overall.

“Compared to last year, we had most of the weight classes, if not all of them filled out, so this year it’s a lot harder during tournaments, but we still push through,” Wills said. “We work our hardest.”

The evidence is witnessed during Royals head coach Nick Holliday’s combat fitness drills, which he carried over from his time in the Marine Corp. A former Royals wrestler himself from 2004-08, Holliday learned toughness from former head coach Steve Hoskins (1995-02, 2004-06).

The last coach to lead the team to a conference team championship (2004-05) back in the White River Athletic days, Hoskins instilled a work ethic that both Holliday and Oliver, the program’s last state finalist (2001-02), embraced.

With the program in a transitional period, Holliday is making it his goal to bring back the philosophies of the past in his first year.

“That’s where we’ve gotten a little resistance. Some kids just wanted to show up, and now, we’re pushing them to earn that letter,” Holliday said. “Even if you wrestled varsity matches, if you didn’t earn that letter, then you’re not getting it essentially.

“It’s an ‘All In, Buying In’ approach and we’re trying to show them that, yeah, we might be small in numbers, but we’re of quality and we’ll take that over guys who are just looking to go out there and just get the letters.”

Brown and Wills are earning their patches with a combined 31 wins between them this season. Wills’ record stands at 18-4, while Brown is 13-8.

Wills is a two-time, top-three place-winner in the Mid-Eastern Conference tournament and has wrestled since he was 6, learning the basics early on at camps in Anderson and from his family’s legacy through the sport.

The program has also received a boost this winter with 2018-19 semistate qualifer and MEC champion Alexander Burton joining the staff as a volunteer assistant.

“He’s just good because he’s fit, strong, fast and he’s a great encourager. He’s what the program has needed the whole time,” Holliday said. “We’ve had a culture issue as far as being stuck in the same ways. I’ve come in and we’re fast, we’re quick, and we’re going to do everything with intensity, with speed, we’re not taking moments off.”

With around a dozen eighth-graders coming up next year and nearly 25 junior high wrestlers in the youth program, the Royals’ future in on the upswing.

Meanwhile, the high school wrestlers are doing their part, serving as mentors for the youngsters by spending an hour a week with them training and 30 minutes outside of wrestling to help them grow and develop as people of character.

“That’s something we’re trying to push down to the middle school as well. We’re trying to get our high schoolers involved in the middle school program where they encourage each other,” Holliday said. “We’re doing the mentorship program this year where all of our high schoolers have at least three junior high students they mentor.”

Freshmen Brayden Tincher (170) and Kain Sotelo (126), sophomore Sam Kesler (145), and juniors Jackson Beaudry (285) and Kegan Kendall (126) are each learning how to lead by example.

Holliday continues to set the tone, however, as a Fellowship of Christian Athletes area representative for Hancock and Shelby Counties, and a success story with Royals’ roots.

“Coach Hoskins, that’s what taught me that the intensity has to be there through all the practices. He was never a coach that took a moment off,” Holliday said. “And then the seniors would lay it into the younger guys if they weren’t working, and that’s what I’m trying to teach these guys here. It’s all about leadership. It’s all about examples. It’s all about showing the younger guys how to work.”