Wrestling looks to overcome loss of two key seniors with surprise trip to State
The Wrestling team engages in intense practices in the Wrestling room every day after school to ensure they reach their goals at the end of the season.
Thanksgiving Break is over, which not only means no turkey for a while, but also signifies the beginning of the wrestling season.
Similar to football, swimming, and cross country, the BSM wrestling team does not cut people from the team. “We don’t cut people for wrestling because no matter what your skill level is, we can find you [a] match with someone,” senior Grant Gustafson explained.
Before the regular season began, the wrestlers worked out to improve their strength. “Our training schedule [in the offseason] consisted of two-a-day trainings and large amounts of heavy lifting workouts and stamina building exercises,” junior Alex Fischer said.
Along with working out, the goal was to compete in some actual wrestling matches before the BSM season started. “Preparing for the season we encouraged wrestlers to compete in offseason tournaments and offseason training,” Gustafson said.
While the team remains fairly similar to last year’s team, they lost two seniors that were vital to their success. “Last year we had two seniors [Jameer Anderson and Charlie Wolfe] who would both consistently win us matches, so that has affected our team,” Gustafson said.
However, Gustafson and Fischer both believe that the younger kids will step up and help the team this season. “We do have new younger talent coming in [that will help],” Fisher said.
Even though they lost two integral players of their team, the team has high expectations this season. “Our goals are to surprise a lot of people and win the Section Tournament as a team and send as many people to State as possible,” Gustafson said. “It will always be a hard battle on the mat, but I believe we have a good shot of sending a few team members to individual State [competition],” Fischer added.
To reach these goals, it will be paramount that the veterans on the team step up. “Our captains need to make sure that we not only get our team important wins, but also that we provide good leadership to the younger kids,” Gustafson said.
The team will be looking to improve every practice and every match. Hopefully all wrestlers are ready for the Section 5AA Tournament in February.
