Wrestling team faces decrease in team numbers

The Falcon wrestling team has some big stars but not many of them. 

This is what contributed to a difficult loss against Fremont on Jan. 30, although several wrestlers won in their individual matches.

Senior Graham Grant won at 220 pounds, junior Christian Murabito won at 182 pounds, senior Mike Fitzsimmons won at 185 pounds and senior Isaac Tung won at 132 pounds.

“We played a tough team,” Murabito said. “Most of our guys wrestled ranked wrestlers, and they wrestled hard, but it wasn't necessarily a good day for most people.”

The wrestling team competed, but lost in meets on Jan. 24, Jan. 17 and Jan. 19, against Palo Alto, Gunn and Monta Vista respectively.

Fitzsimmons and Murabito won their last matches against Monta Vista. Junior Vince Rositano also won a close match against a highly ranked opponent.

The biggest challenge so far has been the lack of wrestlers on the team. Last year, 15 athletes wrestled; this year only eight are still on the team. One key loss was junior Araad Sarrami who transferred to Bellarmine. 

“We didn’t have as many guys as [Monta Vista] so we lost by quite a bit,” Grant said. “But there are a few weight classes that we’ve won in consistently — 182s, 220s and 285s.”

The wrestling season was scheduled to close with the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League championships on Feb. 8-9 at Homestead, the Central Coast Section (CCS) tournaments on Feb. 28 and March 1 at Independence and the CIF State championships on March 1 and March 2 at Bakersfield.

Last season, Grant won the League and CCS championships at 220 pounds. 

 Grant said he's hoping to place at the state tournament and, despite the difficulties of being a team that can't fill all weight classes, sees reasons to be positive.

Grant is satisfied with the team’s record this season.

“[The season] is going pretty well so far,” Grant said. “The big ones [League, CCS and State] are coming up. I think we'll do pretty well.”