On Jan. 26, the wrestling team hosted senior night against BCC.  Although the team lost 40-30, three seniors won in their individual matches. With the regular season coming to an end the team finished with just one win. Despite the lack of wins the team still showed a strong effort at senior night. Seniors Tony Hesseloff, Jake Gross and Walter Lyons all set the tone for the postseason by winning their matches.
“I knew I was not ending the regular season without a fight, I gave my last match everything I had,” Hesseloff said.
Hesseloff won a close match right before it would have gone into overtime. “I’m looking forward to the postseason, I feel that the team and I have worked hard for it and want to show out when the time comes,”  Hesseloff said.
The team will move on to counties but only the top eight on the team will advance after. Hesseloff is a likely contender at this year’s state event. This year’s states team will consist of mostly light weight wrestlers.
Another bright spot for the team is the strength in the lighter weight classes. Senior Jake Gross dominated his matches with an outstanding 9-4 record. He believes the team is progressing in all areas and is pleased with the team’s performance so far.  “We have progressed a lot since the start of the season, starting with a lot of inexperienced guys, to guys who have a shot at placing at counties, regionals, and states,” Gross said.
Gross tries to spread his leadership at every workout, practice, and match.
Possibly one of the most powerful performances on senior night was junior Jake Warner. Although he is not a senior, he put on a show with winning his matches 21-7, the largest winning margin of the night.” This year the team bonded together and we improved over time, our mentality was to win every match possible,” Warner said.
Warner is looking to have a strong postseason and has a strong chance of making states this year. “My goal this postseason is to place at states. That has been my mindset everyday at workouts and most of the off season,” he said. With counties coming up he has to beat out seven of his teammates to make sure he has the opportunity to finish the goal he had set at the begginning of the season
Senior Walter Lyons had a different outing on senior night. Although he has had a strong performance in nearly every match this year, he won on senior night through forfeit. “It wasn’t the way that I wanted it to be, but I’ll take it,” Lyons said.
Their next match is counties on Feb. 17 and 18 at Gaithersburg.

Grant Saylor

Staff Writer