When people outside of Eastern Oregon think Hermiston, they often think watermelons. After all, the fruit that will soon be in season adorns signage and water towers greeting passerby and residents alike.

But there is another crop Hermiston is known for — something far more fierce but also something that takes the same amount of care and attention. The city produces crops of grade-A wrestlers.

Producing the wrestlers that have helped Hermiston High School to 10 state championships starts with a strong feeder program. That youth program, known as Hermiston Wrestling, has reached the final three months of its nine-month season and will be traveling to Reno at the end of the week for the 2018 Flo Reno Worlds Championships.

Former youth wrestler, Hermiston and Oregon State alumnus and now coach Kyle Larson is taking one of his biggest groups ever.

“Last year, we might have taken the same amount, but we had quite a few high school kids and a few junior high kids that were going with us, but for elementary, absolutely this is the most we’ve taken for that age group,” he said after one hour and forty five minutes of a tough practice last week with 11 youth wrestlers in attendance.

The elementary and middle school aged kids, along with their parents, practice in the high school’s mat room for nearly two hours most evenings. Practices include a number of different drills paired with endurance training to keep the kids not only physically tough but mentally prepared for the competition they will face.

En route one of the two biggest tournaments of the year, the team has amassed a collection of metals and trophies.

In one of its more recent outings in Pomeroy, Hermiston had seven wrestlers stand atop the podium in first place and one with a second place finish.

This upcoming weekend, Hermiston will be facing wrestlers from coast to coast and while Larson admits placing is always the goal, seeing improvements against some of the toughest competition the youth wrestlers will face is just as important.

“It’s a very tough tournament,” Larson said, “and I think last year we had one guy place. So, if you look at it like that, really we go there and it’s — everybody wants to place, don’t get me wrong, but we look at it as one, let’s go get more matches and two, if we’re not where we need to be technically, athletically, whatever, let’s go find out what it looks like, let’s see what our goal is.”

Last year there were over 4,000 wrestlers participating in the tournament from the 6-and-under age group all the way up to age 18.

“At this age, winning doesn’t matter,” Larson added. “We want them to be happy. We want them to like wrestling. We want them to go get matches, we just want their skill level of wrestling to get better.”

After worlds, Hermiston will be competing in the Tri-Cities before making another trip to Nevada for the Western Junior Regionals in Las Vegas.