2/5/20

By DEMETRIO MARTIN
SNN Staff Writer

The wrestling team is off to a great start and they’re expecting to grow from here.

“The team is great. We are better than last year, and the future is bright. We have a lot of young talent with promise,” head wrestling coach Jacob Kowalczyk said.

Recently the team won third place at district duals. The teams included were Admiral Farragut, Bay Shore, Gibbs and Northside Christian. The team also recently had a meet at Bradenton Christian where senior Ryan Turri went undefeated, sophomore Nate Sanders won his first match by pin and sophomore Julian Gonzalez won a match by mercy rule, because he was beating his opponent 15-0.

“It felt good to go undefeated and just dominate and beat everyone that stepped on the mat with me,” Turri said.

The team has lots of young talent, Kowalczyk said.

“We have many first-year wrestlers, who are just learning the game and will come back even stronger,” he said.

The new wrestling practice facility has helped the team grow.

“The new facility gives us more athletes than last year. We had four. Now we have 12. It also helps us get better, stronger, bigger and better fundamentally,” Kowalczyk said.

The team is ultimately getting ready for its big upcoming meets. They have the district tournament at Lakewood on Feb. 22, then after that they will compete for regionals and states.

“This is just the beginning. We’ve been working hard to get ready for district and regionals, which I feel we’ll do well, and I can see some of us making it to states,” senior wrestler Andarius “Tank” Wilson said.