BUTLER TWP - The high school wrestling season may be three months away.

But mid-August is as good a time as any for a wrestler to hone his or her skills and pick up a few pointers in the process.

Slippery Rock High School coach Fred Powell and Butler coach Scott Stoner felt the same way.

The two organized the first Butler County Wrestling Clinic, which began Monday and finished up Thursday at Alameda Park.

Wrestlers ages 10-18 paid $10 for the four-day camp, running 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. each night.

"We didn't do much advertising for it this year," said Powell before Wednesday's session. "We figured we'd see how it goes first."

While Powell hopes to make the clinic an annual event, he would like to run it earlier in the summer next year.

"We'd like to avoid football practice," he said. "A lot of the kids play football and couldn't come for that reason. At first we expected between 40 and 50 kids. The first day we had 25 show up, but less and less have come since then."

Still, the camp has served its participants well.

"I'm very impressed with how attentive the kids are," Powell said. "They are concentrating and that's a big part of it all."

Along with Powell, the camp has four other instructors - Fred's son Liam, a sophomore wrestler at Slippery Rock University, Slippery Rock High School senior Jeff Becker, former PIAA runner-up and Latrobe graduate Chris Graber and former SRU assistant coach Steve Roberts.

Becker placed third in the state last season at 135 pounds.

"There are a lot of kids here with talent," said Becker. "But they just haven't established themselves yet. Coming to a camp like this can help them with the small mistakes they've been making."

One of the clinic's participants is Slippery Rock High School junior Chelsea Fuller, who just returned from the national freestyle championships in Fargo, N.D.

She placed eighth out of 18 females at 101 pounds.

"I've only been wrestling for a year, but it's been a lot of fun," Fuller said. "When you come to a camp, you should be ready for whatever the coach has in mind."

"Today we are concentrating on takedowns," said Powell. "It's an important aspect of wrestling. We've also worked on pinning and escapes."

Stoner, who was not at Wednesday's session due to a promotional fundraiser for SRU scholarships, wrestled for Powell at SRU in the early 1990s.

Powell coached the Rock for over 20 years.

He's organized many wrestling camps before, including the first SRU camp in the early 1970s and the first national camp in Australia in 1983.

"Camps like this give the young wrestlers the opportunity to learn the skills and strategies without having the pressures of competition," Powell said.

"The reason we wanted it here at Alameda was we figured the kids could jump in the pool after the clinic was over each night, but it's been too cold to do that," Powell said, laughing. "But the people in charge of the park have asked us to come back next year and we probably will."