Individual Standouts Highlight Wrestling Season

Record: 12-10 With several new faces in the lineup,the varsity wrestling team trainedhard and steadily improved to finishtheir season with a 12-10 record.“With a winning record in the balance,the team had an exciting finalweek of the regular season where thebeat both Milton (40-39) and Andover(40-36),” head coach David Hudsonsaid. “Both of these meets came downto the final match of the day whereprep Josh Hemintakoon recorded winsin each to secure the victory. The teamalso had close, hard-fought wins overGovernor’s, Nobles, St. Sebastian’s andPomfret,” he said.Many participants on the teamqualified for the New England Championshipmeet based on their regularseason record, including Josh Hemintakoon‘16, Hunter Voslow ‘15,Sean Haggerty ‘14, Ryan Harden ‘14,Pat O’Connell ‘13, Noah Wright ‘14,Curran Sullivan ‘14, and Jake Whalen‘13. Hudson went on to identify thosedeserving special recognition. “Severalwrestlers had successful individualseasons,” he said. “At the Championships,Josh and Curran won their lastmatches of the day, qualifying them forthe National Tournament held at LehighUniversity. Jake also qualified for theNational tournament when he avengeda two-point loss a week earlier to thenumber one ranked wrestler in his classand won the New England Championshipin his weight division.” Leadingthe team in individual wins this seasonwere Josh Hemintakoon (24), PatO’Connell (22), Jake Whalen (21), andCurran Sullivan (19).Pat O’Connell, the captain, waspleased with the year. “Our season wasgood,” he said. “We had a fairly youngteam, [including] a lot of second-yearkids, but we worked at entirely anotherlevel compared to the season before.This was thanks to our coaches forsupplying us with the equipment andmotivation necessary. They’re greatcoaches and great guys. They organizeda bunch of team dinners and eventswhich was new this year and certainlywas part of what made us so close as ateam.” O’Connell said that his favoritepart of the season was “taking as manykids to New Englands as we did.”Hemintakoon, the team’s leader inwins despite a late season injury, alsoexpressed his contentment with theteam. “Wrestling season was great,” hesaid. “I wrestled pretty well in the winter,but by bad luck I badly broke myhand a week before New Englands andtwo weeks before Nationals. I ended uptaking seventh at New Englands, goinginto triple-overtime with the wrestlerwho took second and losing by a pointto the wrestler that took fourth.”Hudson touched upon the impactthat the most recent additions made tothe team “The newer wrestlers with experiencemade significant contributionsto the varsity program,” he said. “Thosewith less of a wrestling backgroundgained valuable experience.”“I think I’ve improved a lot sincedoing club wrestling in middle schooland since the beginning of the year,”prep Jason Won said. “I’m lookingforward to next season and my improvement.”Lower Kelvin Borges also sawgrowth within the squad. “I really enjoyedmaking new friends in the formof my new teammates and improving atthe sport every day. Looking forward tonext year, we’ll be losing vital piecesto our roster like senior Pat O’Connell,but with a solid group of rising upperclassmen,it should be a good year.” Headded that “JV seems to have a solidcore of wrestlers who enjoy and can gofar in the sport, as well.”Hemintakoon also had his eyes setfirmly on the future. “For a long termgoal, I want to try and get a hundredcareer victories. For the team, I lookforward to the uppers wrestling as seniorsnext year and getting new preps towrestle to get more depth in our team. Ican’t wait to get home and hit the matin the off-season to get ready,” he said.“We have an exciting group of newstudents/wrestlers that have enrolledand we should have a solid nucleus ofreturning varsity wrestlers next year,”Hudson said. “Our goals will be to workas hard as possible on a daily basis,meet the challenges of a demandingschedule, and be at our best for the endof season tournaments.”Hudson added that the team’sstrengths include “a solid work ethicthat allowed us to steadily improve allseason. The only identified weaknesseswere a “lack of depth and experiencein some weight classes. With severalstarting wrestlers gaining valuable experienceand returning next season theteam is looking to continue to improveas a program.”O’Connell agreed that the team’sgreatest flaw was their lack of experienceand articulated the team’sstrengths as conditioning and theperfection of basic moves. The teamcaptain went on to say that were was afeeling of family the team did not havethe year before.“That’s what I really hang my haton. The year before, by the end of theseason, I didn’t even know everyone’sname. And I know I wasn’t the onlyone. This year was totally differentthough, you could feel the closenessat meets and every practice,” he said.“I loved it.”