Wrestling, even as a co-ed sport, has had historically low numbers over the past few years. With just five new members and two veteran athletes after several students didn’t return to the sport this winter, the wrestling team rostered only seven members.
In matches, sporting low team numbers poses a challenge: Since tournament points are awarded through brackets of individual matches divided by weight class, teams without a wrestler to compete in a certain weight class will automatically forfeit that category. With enough individual forfeits, the Falcons would have to face an automatic loss. This problem was further exacerbated last year when the team had only four members.
As a result, the team faced the fact that they were almost destined to lose dual meets., Their best result putting the Falcons in 24-18 in a victory against McDonald on Jan. 30. As a team, their automatic forfeits caused the team to generally place around 15th-19th at larger tournaments.
However, these low numbers also allowed for stronger team bonds among players.
“I love the team dynamic,” freshman Eliana McBeth said. “Even though we are a very small group, everyone encourages each other to try their hardest during practice and in a live match. If I don’t understand how to do a move, I can ask the coaches as well as other people on my team, and everyone is very willing to help.”
During their season, the team — coached by Paula Ramirez — started the week with grueling conditioning, which included sprints, intense workouts and wrestling techniques as the tournaments drew closer. Athletes honed their skills and added different techniques to their repertoire, including exercises such as the windmill, leg ride and half Nelson.
McBeth felt that the team improved with every match, especially as they placed more time and effort into practicing and conditioning.
In the league, sophomore Quinn Bossow was the only wrestler to qualify for CCS this year, placing 10th of 23 wrestlers in his 106-112 lbs weight class.
“All that really matters is your own performance. I just focus on myself, even if our team doesn’t do so well overall,” Bossow said. “I just have to wrestle a bit more [in individual matches].”
