The first varsity sporting event of the new year for the West Central Valley Wildcats is on the wrestling mat tonight in Logan. The Wildcat wrestlers return to competition in a nonconference triangular versus the Logan-Magnolia Panthers and the Tri-Center Trojans. West Central Valley first-year head wrestling coach Ben Strandberg was a guest on Monday’s Wahl McAtee Tire and Service Center Guthrie County PM Sports Page. He was highly complimentary of the Logan-Magnolia Panthers varsity squad. “(They’re) a pretty stellar team to say the least,” Strandberg said, “(Logan-Magnolia’s) got some great freshmen in their lower weights that have come into the lineup that have been pretty impressive. We saw them in our first tournament of the year.”

Both the Panthers and Trojans have one ranked wrestler a piece entering tonight’s duals. Junior Connor Attkisson represents Tri-Center in the Predicament’s Class 1A rankings as the fourth-ranked grappler at 120 pounds. Sophomore Briar Reisz is Logan-Magnolia’s lone rated wrestler, sitting No. 2 in the 126-pound weight class. West Central Valley currently has no grappler rated top 10 in any of Class 1A’s weight classes according to the Predicament. Tonight’s nonconference triangular between Logan-Magnolia, Tri-Center, and West Central Valley starts around 6 p.m. from Logan-Magnolia High School.