Wrestling Clinches the New England Title
With a stinging black eye, prep Kevin Lyskawa steps onto the championship match of the New England wrestling tournament held at Tabor Academy, eyeing his opponent from Roxbury Latin with only his right eye. This is it. This is for the gold medal and the glory to be number one in New England. After a hard-fought match by both wrestlers, the referee blows the final whistle, and raises Lyskawa’s arm, signaling a 9-0 victory for Big Red’s young wrestler and champion, Kevin Lyskawa.
In a tournament featuring the best teams and wrestlers in all of New England, Big Red came out on top, placing first. The team defeated Brooks School, the second place team, by a comfortable margin of fifty three points, and Belmont Hill Academy, the third place team, by eighty.
“I was very pleased with the team’s performance. Each person held his or her own weight and that’s what made the difference and that’s what led the team to the victory.”
Three Big Red wrestlers claimed the gold in their respective weight classes: lowers AJ Pedro and Joey Rosetti and prep Kevin Lyskawa. In addition, lowers Abhijay Saran and Quinn Abrams took second place; Abrams lost his final match by just one point. However, in a team event such as the New England Championship, all the wrestlers, not just the few standouts, are required to step up and perform well in order to win it all, and that is exactly what the deep and skilled Big Red team was able to do.
Of the ten wrestlers who attended the tournament, eight placed in the top three in their weight class. With impressive performances from each individual wrestler, victory seemed inevitable for Big Red, the heavy favorite going into the tournament.
Lyskawa commented on this impressive team performance. “I was very pleased with the team’s performance. Each person held his or her own weight and that’s what made the difference and that’s what led the team to the victory,” he said. “After all, these are the best of the best teams and wrestlers in New England.”
However, this dominating performance did not come without an immense amount of hard work and training. The team has been working diligently throughout the entirety of their undefeated season.
Saran praised the team’s work ethic during the season, which he said led up to the championship victory. “There is not much more to be said than the fact that the entire team has put in a lot of work over the last few months,” he said. “We drilled hard every single day under great coaches and with equally motivated teammates when the time came to perform, we had worked hard enough to succeed.”
In addition to the skill improvement in the season, the steady growth of team chemistry also contributed to the big win. “If we hadn't stuck together as a team as much as we had, before the tournament, and hadn't planned before, we may not have performed as well as we did,” Abrams said. “So I guess that you could say that we are a very collaborative team, although on the mat, wrestling is an individual sport.”
During the match, Exeter remained focused and mentally alert, which enabled the wrestlers to use the tools that they had built up throughout the course of the season including both team chemistry and individual skill.
Abrams said that the entire team was “focused to the max.” In addition, Abrams said “[each wrestler was] very supportive of each other [and] helped each other gain a mental edge before matches and maintain a positive outlook if something went the opposite of how we wanted it to.”
Despite winning the Class A championship and the New England championship, the team is still hungry for more. This coming Saturday will be the prep Nationals, the biggest tournament of the year.