Wrestling Team Pins Down Winning Season
By NICHOLAS MANDEL and ERAY OZCAN
The floor of the gymnasium shakes as two wrestlers battle it out, putting all their energy into trying to overpower their opponent. As they continue to push through the match, waiting for the other to slip up, tensions rise as supporting teammates on both sides of the gym cheer their friends on.
This is what a typical match looks like for a Midwood wrestler. As two teams go against each other, they send out their starting lineup consisting of one wrestler per weight class, proceeding up the weight classes until every starter has wrestled.
Led by captains Eray Ozcan ’21, Dennis Kaplan ’21, Alexander Shavishvili ’20, and Dimitri Gamkrelidze ’20, the boys varsity wrestling team ended the regular season with a 5-4 record, defeating Gaynor Campus, Erasmus, Canarsie, South Shore, and Bayard Rustin.
In addition, at the hardest tournament of the year held in New York, The Mayor’s Cup, Adrian Artsishuevskiy ’21 placed first in the 160lb weight class, while Gamkrelidze and Shavishvili both won multiple matches. Mr. Michael Dowd, the head coach, described the tournament as a “big day for Midwood wrestling” on SportsYou. The team is striving to have more wrestlers compete in the Mayor’s Cup and rack up even more points next year.
With each match, the winning wrestler collects points for their team either by pinning their opponent, or by decision, and at the end of the night, the team with the most accumulated points comes out victorious.
“We have to be mentally prepared so we don’t give the other team any sort of edge,” said Kaplan.
Of course, in order to do so there is a lot of preparation involved. The team practices every day in the cafeteria after school from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
“The team is determined and ready to go hard,” said Shavishvili.
Along with this, often times wrestlers must cut weight in order to go up against lighter opponents during dual-meets and tournaments.
“What’s especially hard about wrestling is controlling your nerves before a match,” said Victor An ’21. “You may feel anxious or nervous, but you have to put all that aside and just focus on wrestling the best you can.”
It is not a surprise that wrestling can be a brutal sport in terms of the physical toll on the body as well as the mind. It can be difficult to recruit dedicated students.
However, “this season has been a good recruiting season,” said Mr. Dowd. “This is a building year with all the new guys and experienced guys on the team.”
With the amount of new recruits received this year, and a fair amount of returning wrestlers, the team seems to have quite a bright future ahead.
Wrestling a full season definitely presents some challenges. Aside from the weight cut, the daily practices, and the weeklong competition, the athletes must stay consistent in order to remain in peak physical condition. However, as freestyle world champion Dan Gable once said, “Once you’ve wrestled, everything else in life is easy.”
Nicholas Mandel ’21 holds a single leg shot at the Wingate Tournament. Photo Credit: Makzim Semkiv