NHS Wrestling Prepares for the Season 

Last season was definitely different for the NHS wrestling team. The team started practicing last spring and was only able to have 5 out of the 25 typical matches, says Senior Captain Coleman Keady. 

This season will be almost back to normal and the team plans to do well during this year's tournaments with lots of practice. 

Keady shares that “this will be my fourth year doing wrestling. Last year we got pushed back to the spring and it was a very short season with only about five matches.” 

“I’m really excited about this season and I think it will be great. We still have to wear masks but as long as we get a full season, I’m happy," he said.

The team is taking some precautions to make this season go smoothly.

“If your mask comes off, which will happen as wrestling is a very aggressive sport when you are in a scoring position, the ref will stop the match so you can adjust your mask," he said.

Last season when the team had their spring seasons some matches were held outside which Keady admits were not the easiest. 

“There was a match we had against Oliver Ames that was outside but the mats had no traction, [and] my feet kept slipping everywhere,” he said. 

It’s safe to say the team likes their indoor matches and is excited to be doing them again. 

With the season starting up again, there has been plenty of preparation for upcoming tournaments. 

“Before practice even starts we have to wash all the mats just because of skin infections that could happen and after that, we start off with jogging around the mats doing some stretches.”

“To warm up we also do cartwheels and a light workout," he said.

After all the warmups, coaches will demonstrate a move of some sort and then the team will typically go into drills or live wrestling with partners. After all of this, they usually end with sprints.

“On Wednesdays, we usually have a match against one team and then on Saturdays would either be tri or quads, which is when we wrestle against either two or three other teams.”

While there were some differences between this season and last, Keady is excited to get back into a mostly normal season and compete in tournaments with the team.

“Overall, I am looking forward to postseason tournaments. My favorite tournament we’ve been to is in Sandwich, and we hope to be sectional champions this year.”