Big Red Wrestling Competes at the Northern New Englands

Exeter wrestler competes in a match Courtesy of exeter.edu

By ALLEGRA LAI and CELIA VALDEZ

On Feb. 3, Big Red Wrestling woke up bright and early to compete at the Northern New England tournament hosted at Hyde School. The team placed 3rd overall, with wrestlers co-captain Sebastian Hiller, prep Konrad Kutt, and senior Jack Mosley leading the charge with individual championship wins. In addition, eight other Exeter wrestlers, Marek Jin, co-captain George Varghese, co-captain Alex Rosen, Nathi Lomax, Zain Reza, Ikaika Toves, Becket Moore, and Jack Breaks all placed at the tournament. 

“The team had a solid performance at the Northern New England tournament, finishing third behind Eagle Hill and Andover,” said coach Justin Muchnick. “It would have been nice to have pipped Andover for second place at the end, but overall the weekend went well. The main goal of the tournament was to get us prepared for the upcoming Class A and New England tournaments, so I’m glad that our wrestlers gained experience in a long day of tournament competition.”

“I think the tournament was great for the team. We all had a great time and we all were pretty focused,” reflected Kutt. “At the beginning of the season, we weren’t that great. Most of us were very new to the sport or the team and I think we’ve improved a lot considering how well we did at the Northern New Englands.”

“Overall as a team we wrestled really well, learned a lot throughout the practices, practiced well, and then just brought it to the competition over the weekends,” Sebastian Hiller, co-captain of the varsity wrestling team said. 

“A big highlight was seeing Konrad, a freshman winning his bracket at 126, then for me, I just pinned everyone in under a minute thirty, so that was really nice. Just seeing everyone having fun at a tournament,” Hiller added, complimenting Kutt.  

When speaking to the team’s overall progress throughout the season, Hiller expressed the resilience of the wrestlers, who stuck to their sport despite its physical rigor. “This year we had a lot of new wrestlers, but they stuck to it, didn’t quit, which is the main thing — usually a lot of people quit early on in wrestling, but I’m very proud of them for not, and they just stayed through, stayed true to the sport, and so far there’s been a lot of progress.”

The team is looking ahead at the Class A tournament, as well as the New England tournament at Choate. “Finishing in the top six at New Englands qualifies you for Prep Nationals at Lehigh University, which is the culminating event on our calendar. What makes these tournaments so thrilling and rewarding is that you have to earn the right to extend your season—this is when you need to find a way to close out a tight match, to score a last-second takedown, or to beat a kid who beat you earlier in the season if you want to make it to the next week of competition,” Muchnick said.