Colony standout to wrestle at the college level

PALMER — Vincent Cramer signed his National Letter of Intent to wrestle at Eastern Oregon University for the Mountaineers next fall. Cramer joins a long line of former Colony wrestlers that earned their opportunity to wrestle at the next level. As a young athlete, Cramer had dabbled with other sports involving a ball but was immediately infatuated with wrestling.

“Hard work pays off. The more hard you work, the more stuff you earn basically. It teaches you life, the harder you work for it that’s what you’ll get. If you want something you’ve got to earn it,” said Cramer.

Surrounded by his father Vincent, his mother Maria, coaches and friends, Cramer swooped a pen along the National Letter of Intent to begin his future as a member of the Mountaineer Wrestling team. While at EOU, Cramer wants to double major in history and physical education. In Vincent’s eighth grade year, his father Vincent Cramer built the Pioneer Grappling Academy, a year round wrestling facility where his son could not only train and compete, but share his knowledge with younger wrestlers.

“He’s kind of like the prodigy of the gym. He coaches little kids and he’s very involved in that already,” said the elder Cramer. “To show that to kids makes him think it through and it’s definitely made his wrestling a lot better and I think that’s what pushed him into wanting to be a teacher. He just really enjoys working with the kids and it feels good to him when they get stuff that he shows them.”

Cramer’s work ethic stood out at Colony High. As a member of the Knights wrestling team, Vincent earned a top three finish at state each of his four years, culminating with a dominant performance in December’s state title match against Soldotna’s Dennis Taylor at 152 pounds. Cramer routinely let go of his opponent before reengaging and earning more takedowns, finishing with a 14-5 victory for the state title. His father knows Vinnie’s work ethic all too well.

“As a young kid I’d notice his work ethic. He just always kind of made up his own workout routines and did things on his own. I’d come home from work and he’d be setting up little alarms with one minute rounds and doing his own little drilling,” said the elder Cramer.

Cramer was a part of the Colony team that won the Division 1 State Title this December, leading the way with the most dominant performance of any champion. Head coach and Coach of the Year Todd Hopkins knew that his wrestlers at Colony would miss Cramer as an above average workout partner and shared some outgoing advice for competing at the next level.

“I know that they’re getting a very good wrestler, an extremely hard worker and a great teammate. I was excited this year to see his hard work get rewarded with a state title,” Hopkins said. “I think the biggest thing for him to improve for college is to be able to get off bottom and he knows it.”

Cramer said that he was going to miss everything about wrestling at Colony.

“I just want to thank my family for always being a support to me, my dad who is always coaching me, helping me get better, making up my mistakes, my coaches for doing the same thing, working with me one on one to try to be a state champ and my friends who are always there cheering me on just being supportive,” said Cramer.