With a strong final score of 44-32, the Westford Academy varsity wrestling team kept up their game against Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School (LS) in their meet on Thursday Jan. 30, where WA was able to bring their total season wins up to twelve. The team won eight out of the fourteen matches, establishing them as victors.
Although Westford won the coin toss and the first match with a no contest victory, the next three matches weren’t so forgiving. WA went on to lose three straight matches, with the wrestlers spending most of their time in disadvantaged positions. Without much individual point scoring at all from WA, the score was 6-14, providing a comfortable lead for LS.
The first sign of a turn around came with a notable match between WA’s Travis Proulx and Leo Benoit from LS which lasted a grueling amount of time with an injury break in the midst. Although the round still seemed winnable after the break finished, Proulx went on to lose to a pin from Benoit, making for WA’s fourth early loss in a row.
The next few matches had WA’s chances of victory starting to look up as wrestlers freshmen Thomas Sears and Kieran Donaghue, juniors Leo Babineau and John Shi, and senior Nick Dubuc, with weight classes of 126, 144, 138, 144, and 138 respectively, all won their matches consecutively, bringing up WA’s score immensely.
A few of these matches were small point battles with WA wrestlers beating out their opponents by a few points and winning the match once the time ran out. One exceptionally exciting and energetic match that caught the spirit of both crowds at the meet was Shi vs. Paxton Petrone, which was Shi’s first varsity match. This match lasted for quite some time with the victor only becoming clear at the very end of the match, with disadvantaged and advantaged states swapping back and forth on the regular. Eventually, time ran out, leaving Shi the winner of the match.
According to head coach Bruce Rich, the team is suffering from a plethora of injuries across its ranks, including star sophomore Alex McDonald who had previously built up an impressive win streak before suffering an arm injury. Due to all of these injuries, the team has needed to adapt over the last few weeks, resulting in a handful of less experienced wrestlers getting some time in the varsity playing field.
At this point in the meet, WA was up in score by 12 points, and things only began to look better for the team as the game progressed. With two more victories from sophomore Isaiah Tay and junior Ben Chen with weight classes of 157 and 165 respectively, the Ghosts had clearly hit their stride. Tay notably won by a dominating pin early in his match. At this point, the meet was effectively decided with WA having accumulated over 40 points. Even though WA went on to lose the next two matches, they still won the meet 44-32.
“We’ve got to get healthy and we’ve got to stay healthy, [because] we’ve got a ton of injuries,” Rich said. “In the meantime, the kids that are showing up, practicing and staying healthy, they’re the ones that helped us win this match today.”
WA Wrestling will have their next meet on Wednesday, February 5, in an away game against Cambridge Rindge & Latin School.
