Wrestling battled against Northwest High School and Princeton High School on Wednesday, with the boys losing to Northwest 54-22 and winning against Princeton 42-42, and the girls dropping both duals due to a lack of players.

“The Dual Meet last night ran smooth and was every bit competitive that I thought it would be,” co-head coach Justin Koons said. “I have a lot of respect for both Coach Fresh, from Northwest, and Coach Delavergne, from Princeton. They each have built strong programs with a lot of depth, a strong following, and they coach their kids well. All of that had the teams and fans on the edge of their seats for every match, making the place loud and fun to be in. The atmosphere was awesome.”

Struggling with injuries and illnesses, the boys’ faced challenges but still saw success.

“The goal last night was to compete hard and be coachable and I think the team did that,” Koons said. “On the boy’s side we split, we had a feeling the matches would go this way because we had a couple guys out due to injury and out sick.”

For the girls’, a shortage of players on the team gives them a disadvantage heading into each dual.

“On the girl’s side we knew we would drop both duals due to lack of depth. We only have six starters for the twelve spots,” Koons said. “We play each ¨game¨ 6 vs 12 so we are just outnumbered from the start. For every forfeit the other team gets six points, so we basically give every team 36 points before ever stepping onto the mat. Hard to make those points up. Needless to say, we’re looking for some people to come out to wrestling that want to compete. Not too often do you get a chance to start right away on a varsity team. However, looking at all the matches wrestled, the girls won five of the eight matches, which is really good. We were able to get some rookies in a couple matches as well and allow them to acquire some experience under their belts.”

Junior Taylor Clapp believes the small team makes the competition difficult, but also makes their team bond closer.

We have a fairly new team this year with majority underclassmen, so winning against Princeton definitely boosted our confidence in this season,” Clapp said. “Having such a small number of girls on the team is rough. With majority of our girls under the 107 weight class it’s difficult filling holes in our lineup and finding partners to wrestle. It doesn’t give us much variety of different wrestling, but it has made us a fairly close team.”

While still looking for improvement, Koons has confidence in his teams.

“As a program whole, we’re excited about the potential of the team through this season but there is a lot to work on technique wise,” Koons said. “We have two weeks till our next tournament so we´re going to get healthy, rest over break, and come back ready.”