As the season comes to an end, the boys wrestling team has done much better and is improving every day. At the Eric Lewis Invitational, the boys proved themselves as a team and were able to secure third place out of the 22 teams that competed.
This tournament was at MICDS (Mary Institute and Saint Louis Country Day School) and was on Friday, Jan. 23. This tournament was supposed to go from Friday to Saturday but since the snowstorm was supposed to come Saturday, they shortened it to one day. This did not affect our team that much and some people were relieved because of it.
“I was glad it was one day because that meant I didn’t have to make weight twice,” Tristen Murphy (11) said. However, many of the boys were nervous because it gave them less time to prepare in between matches because of how fast they were making it go.
Other than that, the tournament went very smoothly with the boys excelling in their weight classes. One of our wrestlers at the weight 132 pounds, got third place. This wrestler was Tyce Gleckler (11) and he loved every second of his matches.
“My favorite match was the first one, I went against a Lutheran guy and he came out pretty good and was really fast. He got the first takedown but I was able to reverse him and pin him in the first period,” Gleckler said.
These wins are very important for wrestlers, as they give them a boost of confidence for the next match, but loses are just as important and are sometimes their favorite matches as well.
“My favorite match was probably the last one, even though I lost it. It was a fun competitive match and wasn’t one sided and I could have won,” Murphy said.
These tournaments also give wrestlers an idea of what they need to work on and how to improve for districts.
“I need to work on my shot defense,” Noah Spoor (9) said.
“This tournament made me realize there is a few extra guys in our district to make it to state and I got to be better than them,” Gleckler said.
Overall, this tournament was very successful for the Eagles and gave them confidence for districts.
