Just three years ago, predicting that South Range High School would soon qualify for the State Wrestling Dual Team Tournament would have been comical.

Heck, the Raiders couldn’t even fill half of the 14 weight classes. They had “five or six kids” on the team when coach Levi Hively took over in 2017.

And yet here they are, preparing for a community send-off before facing Versailles at 1:15 p.m. in the first round of Sunday’s state team tournament at St. John Arena in Columbus.

Things changed in a hurry for the Raiders, who welcomed in two impressive classes of freshmen the past two seasons. Hively credited much of their success to assistant coach Dave Markulin, who has groomed a young, skillful group into a powerful force.

“He’s been with this class of freshmen and sophomores I have right now ever since youth, back in second and third grade,” Hively said. “He’s been following them all the way up, pushing them and keeping them all together. Those kids came up (to the varsity team), and they made a huge difference right off the bat.”

The large infusion of youth and talent created a competitive environment inside the wrestling room.

The benefits of implementing several strong wrestlers into a team affects several areas of the program, Hively said. For starters, there are battles for most of the spots in the starting lineup, leading to a stronger work ethic by everyone. Also, instead of competing against the same person every day as they did just a few years ago, wrestlers like senior Anthony Czap, who qualified for the state tournament last year, can match up against all types of opponents.

“It’s a big improvement being able to have different kids to drill with,” said Czap, who’s 27-3 and ranked in the top 10 in the state in Division III at 220 pounds. “There are kids who are better at certain things. If you need to work on your neutral game, you go practice with this kid. If you need to work on bottom, you go with this kid. It’s just good being able to have that variety.”

The influx has certainly helped Hively’s cause.

He admitted it was difficult to motivate his team when there were less than 10 kids on it. While Hively had some talent, developing their skills was a hard task when he couldn’t even find a practical partner for them.

“It’s hard when you only have a handful of kids (and) several of your practice partners are three weight classes ahead of you,” Hively said. “Now we have 20, 21 kids in the room. They’re all trying to get that starting position, so the work ethic has sky rocketed. They all want to be that guy.”

The Raiders mostly dominated last week’s regional tournament.

They beat Waterloo, 42-33, in the championship match, and the margin could have been larger, but after locking up the victory with a win at 160 pounds, South Range forfeited four of the last five weight classes to avoid any injuries going into the state tournament.

The next step won’t be so easy. The sixth-seeded Raiders face No. 3 Versailles, which reached the state semifinals last year. Czap has some experience at this level after qualifying for the individual state tournament last season. He and three other seniors are trying mentally prep a group that is made up mostly of freshmen and sophomores (10 of the starters are underclassmen).

“Qualifying as team, I don’t want to say it’s more important to me, but it’s a good feeling to be able to get the whole team down there to experience something like that,” said Czap of comparing this accomplishment with reaching state as an individual. “In years past, everybody’s been more focused on what you had to do to get to the (individual) state tournament, and this year we knew we had a chance of qualifying as a team, so I wasn’t just worrying about getting myself to state but trying to get this whole team (there) and lead them.”

Hively is curious to see where they can go from here.

Securing a berth was one of the goals for the season, and now loaded with a powerful lineup, along with a school and a township rooting them on, he and the Raiders want more than just a qualifying berth.

“We’ve completed that goal already, so now we want to go down there and see what we can do,” Hively said. “Our goal is to be there in the finals wrestling for first and second, but being what it is, this is a huge step for our program. Who knows when this is going to happen again? The kids are all excited, and they’re going to go down there and wrestle as hard as they can and try to keep moving through the tournament.”

If South Range defeats Versailles, they advance to the state semifinal and face the winner of No. 2 Apple Creek Waynedale and No. 7 Bellefontaine Benjamin Logan later Sunday afternoon. The Raiders’ community send-off is at 11 a.m. today.