MITCHELL ODENDAHL, staff writer
As soon as the winter sports season begins, the wrestling team starts training for competition. The varsity team has 17 matches throughout the winter, while the JV team only has 13. To get ready for these competitions, they have to practice wrestling skills, build muscle and eat right.
Wrestlers must wrestle at a certain weight class such as 120 or 132 pounds at matches, so they have to attempt to keep their body fat percentage low and try not to eat too much the week before.
“[The difficulty of making weight] depends on how much you eat during the week, and it depends on if you want to drop to a lower weight during the season,” said junior Kyle Anastasia.
There are two ways to win a wrestling match. The first way to win is to pin the opponent by keeping both of his shoulders on the mat for two seconds. The second way to win is to score the most points. If neither wrestler is pinned, then the person with the most points wins. Wrestlers can earn points from penalties, near pins and escapes.
On November 15 the varsity team traveled to the Jackson County Panthers Challenge Tournament, where Michael Banks took first place at 138 pounds and Chad Smith took third at 145 pounds.
After this solid start to the season, the boys went on to compete in many more meets and kept the momentum going strong.
“We expected to be a contender for the third/fourth seed in the region. Unfortunately when it was time for the area tournament, we had 4 varsity starters out due to injury. With a healthy line up we’re one of the best teams in the area,” said senior Jerome King.
The wrestling state meet is from February 12 to the 15. The team hopes everybody will make an effort to be there.
“They have performed very well; our dual team has a couple holes so we don’t perform as well as when we enter individual tournaments. When we’ve entered individual tournaments, at every one we have had someone in the top four. As a team over all we have performed very well and left it all on the mat,” said IRR teacher and coach David Burton.
