Seven of Ten Wrestlers Qualify for This Year’s Nationals

NORTH ANDOVER, MA – Exeter wrestling arrived at Brooks School in North Andover, Massachusetts ready to go. Big Red finished 2nd as a team, just behind host school Brooks. The team was dominant throughout the day, shocking schools with their performance, and even surprising themselves at times.Ten of Exeter’s fourteen varsity wrestlers attended the tournament, and seven placed. Senior captains Sean Haggerty and Curran Sullivan took 5th and 6th place, respectively. Lower Josh Hemintakoon took 3rd place, preps Abhijay Saran and Isaiah Bailey both took 2nd, and senior Stone Hart and prep AJ Pedro both took 1st. These 7 wrestlers will be moving on to Nationals.Pedro had a fantastic tournament. As the only freshman in his weight class, he still managed to come home with 1st place. Pedro breezed his way to a 9-0 win in the finals. “AJ wrestled extremely well. He really wasn’t even contested throughout the tournament,” Hemintakoon said. Pedro defined dominance.Of 1st place Hart’s performance, Pedro said, “The other wrestlers could hardly compete with Stone. He had some great wins, including in the finals where he won big.” The success is nothing new to Stone, as he continues his undefeated season.Exeter was more than happy with their finish on Saturday, but they believe they could have done even better. Based on preparation and individual expectation, the team believes they could have come in 1st. “The preparation for the tournament could not have gone better. We were all as prepared as we could have been and even though some guys came up short of their goals, it was collectively a great effort by the team,” Pedro said in high praise of his team’s preparation.The crowd played a big role during several of the matches. “Brooks had a big advantage with their home crowd, as the hosts they were totally fired up for their matches,” Hemintakoon said. “It’s hard as a visiting team to tune everyone out.”Brooks was the only team that was able to overtake Exeter. “We knew Brooks was good. They kicked our butt in the regular season. Sadly we weren’t able to turn it around this time,” lower Billy Baker said.Heading into nationals, practice will be a lot of building off of what has made the team successful to this point. “It’s going to be a lot of tinkering and improving our moves, as well as the usual flexibility and cardio work,” Hemintakoon said. “As we only have half the team going to Nationals, we don’t expect the team as a whole to place well. Instead each guy is working on his individual technique to prepare.”The team leaves for Nationals on Thursday, and will have matches over the course of the weekend. Nationals are held at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Exeter’s abridged week of practice will leave them fresh to burn the competition.