Josh Smith had some pretty big shoes to fill.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“My brothers have been wrestling before me, and I liked it,” said Smith, Kent-Meridian’s 136-pound senior. “What really motivated me the most was because my brother was the state champion for K-M (in 2001).”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
In fact, Curtis Smith was the school’s last wrestling state champion more than 10 years ago. And Aaron Smith, another Royals star, was a three-time All-American in college.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
This season, Smith continues his family’s wresting legacy at Kent-Meridian.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
And he isn’t far behind. With five tournaments down, he’s built a 29-1 record this winter. And with 85 takedowns to Smith’s credit so far this season, coach Todd Owens knows his lightweight standout is pretty swift on his feet.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“He’s a good athlete,” Owens said. “Joshua is a high-level kind of kid. He goes up in weight classes (during practice) to give him a challenge.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
At the South Puget Sound League tournament in December, Smith beat heralded Adam Romano of Graham-Kapowsin in a 7-4 decision. The win earned Smith a bump up to the No. 2 ranking in his 4A weight class.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“My favorite match was the SPSL tournament because I beat a guy who’s ranked higher than me,” Smith said. “At the time, he was ranked No. 1 in the state, and I beat him. I cried after that.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Smith said his signature moves include the double-takedown and arm bar, but continues to work on his riding skills.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
With a family full of wrestlers, Smith gets a lot of advice.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“They’re all talking about all the moves I can do, and it helps me out,” Smith said. “If I’m in a certain situation, they’ll help me know what I’m doing.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Smith is poised for a strong finish at Mat Classic XXV, which looms Feb. 14-16 at the Tacoma Dome.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Smith is excited to perform in the state circle. He finished fifth in his weight class at state last season, but is determined to take it a step further this year.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“It’s my last year (so) I want to go out with a big bang,” he said.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Josh Smith had some pretty big shoes to fill. “My brothers have been wrestling before me, and I liked it,” said Smith, Kent-Meridian’s 136-pound senior. “What really motivated me the most was because my brother was the state champion for K-M (in 2001).”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":218,"featured_media":10863,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-10862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10862"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/218"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10862"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=10862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}