As fall sports come to an end, fans say their goodbyes to the Friday night lights and welcome a colder season; The beginning of winter is marked by the start of the wrestling season. The wrestlers have been working hard to prepare, cutting and gaining weight.
Senior captain Argil Bilge said the pre-season was a time that the wrestlers spent “lifting, wrestling on their own” and attending the school’s “practices during the off-season.”
The season kicked off with the Golden Eagle Duals Tournament on Dec. 6, followed by matches against Poolesville (Dec. 11), WJ & Kennedy (Dec. 14), and BCC on Dec. 17.
Senior captain Aidan Hsieh said he is “most excited to be in the wrestling room getting better and seeing how far I came since my sophomore year when I first started.” He is looking forward to “facing teams we lost to in the past, to see how much we’ve grown and test how far we’ve come.”
The team gets its chance to show its improvement in the TITAN Thunder clash tournament (Dec. 27), followed by matches against Blair (Ja.n 4), Magruder (Jan. 8), and Churchill (Jan. 15). The rest of the season’s schedule consists of the Northern Patriot Classic (Jan. 17), a match against Northwood (Jan. 22), and matches against Watkins Mill, Sherwood and Northwest (Jan. 29), Blake (Feb. 5) and the closing RM and Rockville tri-meet on Feb. 8.
The upcoming tournaments that the Patriots are projected to do well at, according to Hsieh, are “Watkins Mill, Kennedy, Rockville and for tournaments, I think our next month tournament, the Patriot classic, we will do good in.”
The strong suit for the team is in the lower weight classes. According to Hsieh, the most successful weight classes include “kids at our lower weight classes such as 113,120,126,132,144.”
The Patriots performed well at the Golden Eagle Duals Tournament on Dec. 6. According to Bilge, “Mostly everybody wrestled, unlike last year where half of the wrestlers didn’t make it through the second day.”
Head coach Shane Bramble said, “I had a lot of fun; within 16 teams we placed ninth. Aiden Hsieh went 6-2 and other wrestlers went 5-3 so there was a lot of individual success.”
Bramble’s goal for the season is to win division champions again and “rebuild a lot of the younger kids on the team.”
The overall season should be a successful one for the team, with the strong suit in the lighter-weight classes, the Patriot’s hard work and training will pay off with a division championship coming home.
