Dedication. Drive. Commitment. Call it what you like, just know that Lake Washington’s Grant Haschak has plenty of it.
The senior wrestler is ranked No. 1 in Washington, thanks largely to his great passion for the sport.
“It’s a part of me,” Haschak said. “I’ve been wrestling since I was three and I don’t know how I could do without it.”
Haschak went 4-2 at the state tournament last season at 189 pounds and placed fifth. This season he moved up to 215 pounds, and he’s yet to lose.
Haschak’s won a number of tournaments this season, including the Pacific Junior Open, the Predator Championships tournament, the Lake Washington Invitational, the Tri State Tournament and the Mariner Tournament.
At the Mariner Tournament, he pinned all four of his opponents in a combined six minutes and 20 seconds.
KingCo competition hasn’t fared any better. Haschak is undefeated and has won nearly every match by pins.
All of this while he’s “really, really working hard” to put on more weight, he said. At the higher weight classification, wrestling matches become less about movement and more about upper body, which suits Haschak well.
Extra curricular activities
What started as a senior project turned into more when Haschak started a wrestling club this fall to help his teammates get better.
“I really wanted to get some guys together because I knew they wanted to wrestle but they didn’t have any place to go,” he said.
Haschak and about eight wrestlers met twice a week at Kirkland Junior High, wrestling, working and just getting better.
Summer break
Grant spent a portion of his summer doing something that’s becoming more and more foreign to him: Getting beat. Badly.
Haschak wrestled with Oregon State’s Kyle Bressler over the summer. Bressler won two state titles at Decatur High School and is the current Pac-10 champion at 197 pounds.
“He gave me quite a beating,” Haschak said. “But it helped me out a lot. I realized what I had to do to hang in with better guys and I’ve never really had somebody push me like that.”
The cradle
While he has a big arsenal, Haschak’s preferred method of pinning is the cradle — a move that it isn’t as gentle as it might sound. A wrestler must have top position in order to execute the cradle. The wrestler hooks one elbow behind the opponent’s knee and the other behind the opponent’s head. Then the wrestler locks hands together and bends the opponent’s body.
“Basically I’m trying to get their far knee into their own face,” he said. “It’s not very comfortable.”
To better his cradle, Haschak made an excursion to Oregon this summer to learn from Roger Weigel. Weigel won an NCAA title in 1971 (134 pounds) for Oregon State, and he is known for his domination with the cradle.
Haschak added the knowledge gleaned from Weigel to his own experiences with the move and now has an impressive attack.
What’s next
Haschak will attend California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) in San Luis Obispo, Calif. next year on a partial wrestling scholarship. The Mustangs compete in the Pac-10 conference in wrestling.
“I said right away if I was leaving Washington, I wanted to go somewhere completely different,” Haschak said. “They have some of the best coaches in the nation, it’s beautiful down there. It’s a complete change from Kirkland.”
His immediate goal is a Washington state title this season. Beyond that, Haschak hopes to place in NCAA’s or win an NCAA title by the end of his time in college.
Haschak wrestles next against Bellevue Christian and Roosevelt at Roosevelt Thursday night, Jan. 15.
