During his first year with the Hamilton West wrestling program, volunteer assistant coach Matt Minder threw himself into the effort and immediately began trying to recruit Hornet athletes from other sports to hit the mats. The first one he approached was a freshman in his integrated science class named Zach Harding.
“I knew he played football, he just had that build and that attitude,” said Minder, now in his second season as Hornets’ head coach. “I talked to a couple of his coaches and said this kid would be a pretty good wrestler. I just saw the way he carried himself, and I said ‘This guy could be legit.’ And the coaches had great things to say about him.”
Four years later, Minder is hoping that projection plays out in a big way.
Harding enters his senior season finally wrestling guys his own size. In previous years he wrestled up at 195 pounds despite weighing a lot less than that. He had his best season last year, going 17-8 while winning the Shawnee holiday tournament and finishing fifth in the Mercer County Meet and fifth in districts.
This year, he is back at 195 and actually weighs that much. In fact, he was looking to drop 10 pounds prior to the start of the season. Last year he weighed 180 pounds at districts.
“It’s always difficult wrestling up,” Harding said. “In my case, they could have 15 pounds of muscle on me. But it also helps you out. It helps you get stronger—stronger in your base, stronger in your stance.”
Harding has been based at West athletic events ever since he arrived. He was a three-year varsity performer at linebacker for the football team and switched from baseball to track after suffering an elbow injury. It turned out to be a profitable switch, as Harding had great success throwing discus last year.
And while he played football and baseball prior to high school, Harding had never done a winter sport. After getting encouragement from both Minder and his father, Mark, Harding decided to give wrestling a shot.
“The wrestling I heard of was WWE, I wasn’t really with it,” Harding said with a laugh. “Then my dad mentioned it to me. I had gone to see my cousin (Doug Bitonti) wrestle for West, and it was fun and all, but it never really clicked in my mind that’s what I wanted to do. My dad said to try it, so I went out.”
As a freshman, Harding was mostly on the JV, but immediately took to the sport.
“At first, you see these guys just wrestling around, but then you see how athletic you have to be to do it,” he said. “I really got into it. It was emotionally draining, physically draining. But I kind of realized that I wanted to keep doing it after the season, because I saw where it left me from a physical standpoint with all my other sports.
“I love the things it teaches you. It builds you up, you’re working hard every single day. It shows you hard work pays off.”
Getting his first substantial time as a sophomore, Harding went 6-5 in dual meets while wrestling at higher weights. And while he was getting beat up physically, he was learning to become a wrestler.
“I definitely had to wrestle smarter than people, they just physically out-manned me,” Harding said. “It’s a matter of knowing what moves will take them down with the amount of leverage, and stuff like that. It was more mental wrestling than physical.”
This year, Harding is looking to place at counties and also get through districts into the regionals. Minder feels he’s capable of both, as Harding can combine the wrestling knowledge he has gained with the fact he will not be at a physical disadvantage in each match.
One of his best attributes is being tough on top, and when he shifts his weight to the right spots, it keeps his opponent from slipping free. That should be even more of a factor this year.
“When it comes to those close matches and he can’t give up any points, he’s the kind of guy who knows how to keep a guy down so he doesn’t give up an escape point that will cost a lot of guys a close match,” Minder said. “He’s a tough kid, and he’s going to fight until the end. He’s not going to fold under pressure.”
Because he played both ways plus on special teams during football season, Harding feels he is in the best wrestling shape of his career. His confidence is at an all-time high entering the season, and so too, is his motivation. Harding is still feeling the sting of a two-game losing streak to end the football season, including a Thanksgiving loss at Steinert.
“That definitely fires me up,” said Harding, whose mother Jen is the president of both the West football and wrestling booster clubs. “I know wrestling isn’t football, but I’m a competitor, I want to win. It’s hard to explain. We had a great football season end on two bad notes, so I want to come out for this next season and do it the right way.”
And while many wrestlers might have gotten frustrated by constantly being smaller than their opponent over the first three years, Harding never let it get to him.
“He’s hung in there this whole time,” Minder said. “He’s had weird setbacks, he had a strange injury his freshman year that kind of held him back. He’s always had to wrestle up and he never had a bad attitude. He’s one of those guys we really loved having in the room. We’re building a culture and the four seniors are my first group of guys through and I couldn’t be prouder of them.”
The coach’s main goal this year is for Hamilton to fill every position in the lineup and not have to forfeit one weight class. He would also like to equal the six wins West recorded last year, and he wants to retain a slew of freshmen and develop them for the future, rather than have them quit as so many have done in the past.
“We’ve been low in numbers, this year a lot of freshman kids have been coming out,” Harding said. “They’re some great kids, they’re really looking good and picking things up fast. We’re an aggressive team this year, we’re not complaining, we’re just sticking to the grind.”
It’s an attitude that Harding gives off.
“Right now we have seven guys that look like if they stay in the program, they could be Zach Hardings,” Minder said. “If we have seven Zach Hardings on our team and we have that every year, we’re gonna be a good team, a team that’s competitive.”
At the moment, Minder is just appreciative to have the original Zach Harding for one more year.
Hamilton West senior Zach Harding will wrestle opponents his own size this season after facing larger foes in years past. (Photo by Donna Brihn.),
