The wrestling season started with their first match on Saturday on December 9th of 2017. Although they have had their ups and downs, overall they have improved. Some of the members of the wrestling team are going to sectionals, such as Senior Stephanie Campos, who is going to women’s sectionals this season.
The team has had five matches so far. They won separate matches but had to forfeit most of them due to not having enough members in the weight class. These are some of the team members’ thoughts on the season thus far.
Senior captain Carlos Parada Araujo said that the season so far has been pretty good for him. He said that “[the team did not] have as many meets as [they] did as last year so it feels a little slow.” He added that “[he] expected to be placed up at NEC tournament, and to [be placed] at sectionals to qualify for the state tournament.” Personally, Parada Araujo believes that he did not tremendously improve on his wrestling skills, but he said he felt really confident in doing his matches.
Parada Araujo said that “[his] greatest accomplishment so far in the season is him being placed at the Wakefield tournament.” He recalled that “in previous years, [he] would never make it past the first round. [He had felt] that [he had] done very well this past year, and so has [the team].” On the team as a whole, Parada Araujo claims that “[they] had our fair shares of bumps and bruises, but [they] have pushed past it.”
Senior captain Seth Jones said that the season so far has been hard for him, but it has been one of his best season so far. For him as an individual and for his team, “[he] always have more expectations, [he] always wants to do better and better, and [he] is trying to make it to states.” He added that “[he] had improved a lot and that [he] had gotten a lot stronger, conditioned himself better, and [he] knows more [on what to do].”
Jones said “[His] best accomplishment was when [he] was winning [his matches], [he] just wants to keep winning.” At first, Jones had a ton of energy during the beginning of the season. Later in the season it started to take a toll on him, but he is working even harder than before. He believes that “this was [his] best season so far, this is [his] best record [he] had ever had.”
Sophomore Ved Gray said that the season so far for him has been pretty well so far and that the team had did better than last year despite it being small. [He] improved a lot this season, last year [he did not] accomplish very much.” He added that “in this season [he is] still undefeated, so [he] thinks that it is a major improvement from last year.”
On what he has accomplished this week, Gray stated that “There really [is not] any one specific accomplishment [he] is most proud of this year.” Nevertheless, Gray “is happy that [he] is doing well this year.” He said that “[he] thinks [that him and his team had] done really well this year, and so has the rest of the team.” he said “We’ve all come a long way from where we were last year.”
So far the season has been really good to the team. Even with their ups and downs they still made it through and got stronger together and individually.
