They’re doing a great job. We have about 25 girls in our program, and they’re showing up every single day. Our girls program is growing by leaps and bounds. Our coaches are doing awesome!”

Raider Coach Tim Haneberg

Going into Thursday night’s home wrestling battle with Simley, Raider Coach Tim Haneberg knew his team had its work cut out for them. Simley won the Metro East Conference with the 48-16 win at Hastings.
“This one’s going to be tough. They’re very, very good,” he said before the match.
When all is said and done, though, the coach is pleased when he sees his wrestlers give their all, win or lose.
“I just want our guys to compete, and I just want them to show up every single match, fight hard for six minutes. At the end of the day, we don’t really focus on the wins and losses, we just focus on how well you compete and control the controllables and things like that.”
This year’s version of the Raiders is minus a big senior class, with seven wrestlers graduating.
“We’ve got a lot of kids and young guys stepping up. We have a couple of seniors that have gotten in the lineup now too, and they’re doing a great job. We’re doing pretty good so far,” said Haneberg.
With Blake and Trey Beissel anchoring the lineup, the Raiders also feature a lot of other talent.
“Some seniors right now are stepping up really, really well too. Creed Peterson and Derrick Steinke, they’ve been staples in our lineup. Those two guys are helping out leadership wise.
But after the senior class, we once again have a lot of great young leaders. Trey is just talking nonstop when he’s wrestling out there. And we have guys like Jack Bainbridge who will be around for another year. He’s been a starter for us a long time. Mark Svoboda has been a starter for us a couple years now. We have a lot of young guys that are really stepping up right now. They’re doing a great job. Then you’ve got young guys like William Bainbridge who’s in eighth grade right now doing a great job wrestling in the 107 spot. We have a lot of cool young kids, and we’re going to be just fine,” said Haneberg.
With recent meets against section opponents, Hastings also has a big quadrangular at home Friday. Hastings will face Park, Eastview and East Ridge. It’s alumni night, and there will be a ring ceremony commemorating last year’s state team championship. Wrestling starts at 5 p.m.
“We have Park coming up here. It’s most likely I think that we’ll see Park in the section finals. We saw St. Thomas last week, and they’re probably top three or four in our section as well. So, we’ve seen the best competition in our section so far,” said Haneberg. “We’ve got a few tough matches coming up. Park is going to be a good duel. We have Shakopee coming up too. That’s going to be a really good one. We’re going to be going to Bemidji, and they had a great performance at The Clash, so that’s going to be a really tough one.”
Haneberg said the Hastings girls wrestling team is working hard as well.
“They’re doing a great job. We have about 25 girls in our program, and they’re showing up every single day. Our girls program is growing by leaps and bounds. Our coaches are doing awesome,” he said.