by Victoria Ramirez| staff writer
Getting ready for their tournament at Reagan High School, the boys and girls of the wrestling are gearing up to take on multiple different schools.
“We are doing pretty good this season, I mean our team is really good and we have a lot of new kids and we have a lot of seniors that are about to leave so we are really going to have to get ready to go into rebuilding mode but so far we are doing pretty good. Duals are not that good but tournaments, we are pretty good tournament team,” junior Marquis McCoy said.
Unlike other sports on campus, wrestling has different way of collecting points than kicking or shooting.
“In tournaments, you get a different amount of points for for each level, but for a dual it’s actually easier to asses because a forfeit or a pin is worth 6 points and a major decision which is a win that is between 8-14 points, which is 4 team points and a win that is 15 or more points is called a tech fault which is worth 5 team points and then any win that is 1 point to a 7 point win is a decision and that is 3 team points, so that’s how a dual works. So everybody’s individual effort adds up to the teams score and that’s how we assess the winners. In tournaments it’s each individual at each weight class and you can enter 1 varsity wrestler for a weight class and they earn points for their wins and as they advance through the tournament however matches they get, whatever they place, determines how many team points they acquire for their total teams score,” wrestling coach Lee Miller said.
Preparing for some time now, while losing multiple seniors and gaining many new, the boys and girls have been practicing and putting in a lot of work for the past couple of months now.
“We have been preparing since November and we wake at 6:20 in the mornings, go to practice for two hours so 6:20 to 8:20 and then sometimes we will do stuff during the period and have been doing that for about four months now and our season started November 17,” McCoy said.
McCoy who is a co-captain is ready to step up and be a captain, to be the leader and guide his team to district championship and then maybe even state.
“We have about six maybe seven seniors and we are kind of giong to have to step up and I mean I am already a leader because I am co-captain but I have to be a captain captain so a lot of people are going to be looking at me,” McCoy said, “It is up to the coaches discretion so he evaluates everybody and sees whoever puts in the most work, who has good character leadership, and who shows up on time and puts in the work and effort, but he picks.”
Coming from a new school, even though coach Miller has not been able to grow with this group of seniors, he has been able to see the boys and girls grow and progress this past year is ready for the district tournament.
“I was at another school for the first 3 years of this group [of seniors] and this group of seniors I have only coached them this year, but like I have seen Garret Mathews since he was a freshman and he was really good as a freshman and he has progressively gotten better and better,” Miller said, “The district tournament for the varsity boys and girls is this Friday and Saturday at Reagan High School.”
