Edmondson putting parts back together for Medical Lake wrestling

There’s an old Johnny Cash song that describes how an autoworker working on the Detroit assembly line built himself a Cadillac bit-by-bit, sneaking parts out of the factory over the length of his 20-plus year career.

“One Piece at a Time,” recorded in 1976, was the last song Cash sung that reached No. 1 on the charts and its lyrics described the finished product with its multi-color fenders and doors.

“Well, It’s a ‘49, ‘50, ‘51, ‘52, ‘53, ‘54, ‘55, ‘56, ‘57, ‘58’ 59’ automobile. It’s a ‘60, ‘61, ‘62, ‘63, ‘64, ‘65, ‘66, ‘67, ‘68, ‘69, ‘70 automobile,” were some of the lyrics penned by songwriter Wayne Kemp.

Second-year Medical Lake wrestling coach Josh Edmondson is kind of taking a similar approach helping build his program. Except rather than being one part at a time over a couple of decades, he’s trying to ideally build it six points at a time — the number earned for pinning an opponent — and do so as soon as possible.

For sure, much more quickly than the 20 years it took the autoworker for his Caddy.

As a former multi-sport star, Edmondson played baseball and football, but certainly excelled at wrestling with a 122-9 career record as a Cardinal and a 2002 state title.

He went on to wrestle collegiately at North Idaho College and won a national title at 184 pounds. That earned him a ride to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, twice qualifying for the NCAA national tournament.

So Edmondson certainly knows how the process works.

What’s hurting his team now is not having wrestlers on the top end of the scale. That equals forfeits and the team drops into a deep competitive hole. That happened last Thursday versus defending state champ Freeman.

Two upper weights have been next to impossible to fill, to the point where lighter wrestlers are moving up a weight class.

“Every time we give up 12 points it’s hard to get back,” Edmondson said. “As soon as we start out that match you can count out 12 points.”

That’s where the pins become so vital.

“What we need to do is go out and get pins, that changes things quite a bit,” Edmondson said.

It may not seem like a big deal to compete with an opponent 10 pounds heavier. But Edmondson can attest to the truth.

“You give up the weight and sometimes it doesn’t seem like that much, 10 pounds or 20 pounds, but when it’s laying on top of you and you’re dog tired, you gotta’ lift your weight and their weight, one pound you can feel the difference,” he said.

That’s why all wrestlers have to make weight Edmondson said. “Because if you’ve ever felt it on top of you, you’ll know.”

While state placers have been a bit few and far between lately at Medical Lake, that may be changing.

Keagan Potter, just a freshman, delivered one of those winning pins versus Freeman last Thursday in the 113-pound division. “This guy really stepped it up,” Edmondson said.

So has Izaiah Schlosser who was runner-up at 195 pounds in last Saturday’s Blackhawk Invitational in Cheney.

“He’s a sophomore and doing really well stepping up in that place, a young guy against a bunch of juniors and seniors,” Edmondson said. “I think he pinned everybody else in the tournament.”

Brayden Petersen is another solid performer this season. That’s particularly important considering Petersen is back after breaking his ankle in football in 2015 and missed most of the season.

He certainly shows no signs of rust.

“Brayden has been top four the last few tournaments, “He’s been wrestling really tough and got some big wins for us,” Edmondson said.

Bit-by-bit, piece-by-piece, it appears that Medical Lake might be putting together one mean and competitive wrestling machine.

Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].