The referees’ whistles and countdowns to the pins can be heard echoing down the halls, and the Highlander wrestlers hope to be the ones whose hands are raised in victory.
The wrestling team is pumped for the new season, hoping to make a statement this year and put themselves back on the map as serious contenders for regionals. The 35-member team has 20 returning wrestlers and 15 novice wrestlers, which is 5 more than last year’s total amount. Having more wrestlers on the team is of great benefit as it increases internal competitiveness during practice, helping the whole team improve. It also provides a strong backup in case a team member goes down.
Coach Pevny remains as head coach, and Coaches Stoll and Blakely retained their positions as assistant coaches. They have also welcomed a new assistant, Coach Perry. Pevny has said in the past that his goal for the team is “to add another championship to the banner in the gym, win Conference and County Championship and get back to Sectionals. This year’s goal is no different. “That’s always the goal, but it’s also always a goal to teach life lessons through the sport of wrestling.”
The team switched things up this year by having three captains instead of two. The captains are seniors, Anthony Cecere, and Bailey Justin, and junior, Trevor Fleet.
Cecere stated, “We have a lot of potential and a great increase in the amount of wrestlers so I see us in the state section and having a few guys move on to the state tournament.”
As a returning state qualifier, Fleet gave his insight on what it will take to get more wrestlers down to Atlantic City for the state tournament, “It’s going to take a lot of hard work, guys showing up to practice, actually doing their workouts, not cheating themselves. They have to believe it if they want it. It’ll happen eventually, TRUST THE PROCESS.”
Justin described the chemistry the team has as its strongest quality and what stands out to him about the team is, “The strong bond between all the wrestlers.”
Coach Pevny wants the whole school excited for matches just as much as the team and coaches are. If he had to give only one reason to convince the students to attend matches it would be, “How the gym is going to look with the new spotlight, the new atmosphere that it’ll bring to the matches. The dark gym and the bright spotlight highlighting the matches adds more excitement to them [and] creates a new thrilling atmosphere not only for the wrestlers, but for the viewers as well.”
The Highlander wrestlers are extremely proud to represent our school, so let’s be extremely proud of having them do it. Go out and support our wrestling team this year.
The season starts off with a Dover tournament on Dec. 16, and the first home match on Dec. 21. West Milford High School will host the regional tournament this year in February 2018.