Wrestling team clashes with titans
photo by Jada Llamido
Sophomore Logan Acey ran a half to pin his opponent. Acey beat his opponent by pin and placed first in the 126 weight class.
Wrestling season kicked off last weekend with the Clash of Titans tournament at University High School in Orange City. The boys’ JV team took first place, the girls’ varsity team took fourth and the boys’ varsity team took third.
The Clash of Titans is a two-day tournament — JV boys and girls wrestle on Friday and boys’ varsity wrestle on Saturday. Weigh-ins started at 9 a.m. and wrestling began at 11 a.m. on both days.
Sophomore Logan Acey took first place in the 126-weight class. He won all his matches by pin and made a big improvement since last year’s tournament.
“I wrestled this kid last year and lost, but this year I pinned him. It felt like a redemption match,” Acey said. “After winning that match, I wrestled in finals, and I took first place. I am extremely proud of myself; I have made a lot of improvements since last year.”
Sophomore Hunter Tate took first place in the 195-pound weight class. Tate faced the number five ranked wrestler in his finals match, and he won.
“I was kind of feeling down going into the tournament, and then I started wrestling like I was supposed to, which led me to wrestle the monster wrestler in the tournament, but I pinned him in the first round,” Tate said.
The boys’ JV team started out their day with a lot of wins. The girls on the other hand had a slower start to their day, three out of the five girls lost their first match, and dropped into the consolation bracket of the double-elimination tournament. Senior Megan Kaplan won her first match and advanced to the winner’s bracket.
“I was excited to compete in the tournament, I felt confident going into my watch, and the rest of the day especially after winning my first match,” Kaplan said.
It was a very long day for both teams, there were tons of match delays, lots of miscommunication and some wrestlers had three-hour breaks before their next matches. The boys wrestled first, and then they would move into the girl’s matches at the beginning of the day. There were so many JV boys at the tournament that the girls had to wait over an hour until they even wrestled in their first round.
“The biggest challenge of the day was definitely being in the gym for 14 hours. I didn’t get to wrestle my first match until around 1 p.m., and the whole girls’ team wrestled two rounds already,” junior Megan Dathe said.
Despite the long day, the teams performed very well compared to last year, when the JV team took second, varsity took third and the girls did not even place.
“Our JV team wrestled very well and won the tournament for the third time in four years. Our girls were short handed but still competed well, finishing 14th in a very tough tournament. Varsity finished third behind two of the top teams in the state,” head coach Scotty Diaz said.
“The thing about wrestling is you only get what you earn. Nothing is given to you. Good or bad, you get what you earn. Our wrestlers competed well this weekend and earned their wins as well as their losses.”
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