As six junior varsity wrestlers join the lineup, crowd gets glimpse of future, but match ends in a loss for Spartans.
photo by Kevin Fleming
After a strong start the Spartans sputtered in the late rounds as they fell to the Grizzlies in a heart breaking final match 37-33 on Wednesday.
With six JV wrestlers in the lineup Wednesday night the TJ wrestlers were shorthanded from the start. With their highly ranked, 285 lb. weight class starter Anthony Choy out, and five others not making weight, Head Coach Mike Laurita had to work hard just to juggle his lineup and find someone for every weight class. He decided to move everyone one weight class higher and spot start kids with limited or no varsity experience. “They did what they could. It’s always tough when you have an athlete with little experience going against kids that know how to wrestle and have been doing so for four or five years,” said Laurita.
With the Kennedy invitational on Saturday, the team was looking to gain some momentum heading into the tournament, but at times some struggled and others did not seemed focused. “A lot of the kids did a lot of the things we have been working on in preparation for regionals, and lots of kids are showing improvement, yet some of our older more experienced guys just lose focus and haven’t been mentally tough lately, which is a problem,” stated Laurita.
In losing the last four matches of the night (before which that they had a 33-18 lead) was a troubling sight for the Spartan coaches. “We’re a better team then we showed in those final four matches. When our guys got down in points in their individual matches, they got nervous. That’s when you have to ignore everything else and just wrestle and put your conditioning to use. We have to work hard to get straightened out, but I am not too disappointed; the kids overall worked hard, and that’s all we as coaches can ask for,” said Laurita.
With a steady dose of 5A schools in their schedule, as well as top 4A schools, the team’s overall record may not be where they want it to be, but wrestling the more talented teams week in and week out should prove helpful for the individual wrestlers come regionals.
