Atwater, Livingston hosting wrestling camp

The Atwater and Livingston wrestling programs are hosting a 12-team camp next week at Atwater High.

With each team bringing around 20 kids, Falcons coach Nelson Medeiros is expecting around 250 wrestlers to attend the camp.

The camp will be held Monday through Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The highlight of the camp will be an all-star, outdoors dual match at Falcon Field under the lights on Monday night at 7:30.

Helping out with the camp will be two silver medalists from the 2004 Olympics – Jamill Kelly from Atwater and Stephen Abas from Fresno State.

“I love coming back to the area and helping kids,” said Kelly, who is currently an assistant coach at Stanford. “I love giving back and teaching kids different techniques, different mindsets and knowledge. I can talk to them about what it takes to get to the next level.”

Proceeds from the dual meet will go to the Pin Cancer charity. Tickets are $5 for adults and $3 for kids. Kelly and Abas will coach the dual teams and each team at the camp will be represented by two wrestlers.

Atwater, Buhach Colony, Golden Valley, Sonora, Ripon, Sierra Pacific (Hanford), Canyon (Anaheim), Downey, El Capitan, Livingston, Mariposa and Central Valley will send wrestlers to the camp.

“It’s our second year we’ve done the camp,” Medeiros said. “We want to put on a good show for the kids. We want to help bring awareness to wrestling. We don’t get the numbers that we should each year. We want to use this as a showcase for the sport.”

The idea for the outdoor match came from the college level, where Stanford and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo held outdoor matches last year.

“Our match against Buhach Colony last year was going to be outdoors in their amphitheater but it fell through,” Medeiros said. “We want to hold our match this year against Buhach Colony in the football stadium. This will kind of give us a trial run to see if we can pull it off.”

During the camp, each team will compete in nine dual meets.

This story was originally published July 10, 2015 at 7:15 PM with the headline "Atwater, Livingston hosting wrestling camp."