Four members of the Westford Academy Wrestling team moved on to the second day of the annual George Bossi Lowell Holiday Tournament hosted at the Tsongas Arena on Saturday, Dec. 20 after qualifying for the quarter final rounds the previous day.
The Lowell Holiday Tournament is the biggest wrestling competition in New England, with 90 visiting teams competing across two days. Of the team members who competed on the first day, the wrestlers who qualified for the next round of the tournament were sophomore Alex Luhrs with two wins and one loss in the 285 pound weight class, senior James Hickey with four wins and one loss in the 150 pound weight class, senior Jacob Blacksburg with three wins in the 215 pound weight class, and senior Olivia Bernier with one loss in the 165 pound weight class heading into the second day.
According to head coach Bruce Rich, WA Boys’ Wrestling has been attending the Lowell Holiday Tournament for about 30 years but success hasn’t always been a guarantee.
“We haven’t had a place-winner here since 2016,” Rich said. “We didn’t come here last year, and the year before we only had one guy make it to day two.”
The first match of the day was Hickey’s at 10:45 a.m. Going into the match, Hickey was coming off of a streak of four consecutive wins. The streak ended in the second period however, when Hickey was taken down and pinned by his Bedford High School opponent, Matthew Morin, ending his tournament run with four wins and two losses.
Next to compete was Blacksburg against the seed one wrestler Jackson Meehan from Central Catholic High School. According to Blacksburg, the highly challenging opponent influenced him to open the match with a more unorthodox tactic he called “desperation.”
“If you wrestle conventionally, you’re going to lose, which is why you have to do something that is usually unexpected,” Blacksburg said. “So you want a high risk, high reward kind of tactic. I tried to go for a headlock, but the dude picked me up and slammed me and proceeded to give me the hardest cross face I’ve ever had, to the point where my lip broke in two places, and my tooth started bleeding, and then he put me in a cradle, and I was pinned in the first period.”
Despite the loss, the tournament required two losses to be eliminated, so Blacksburg was allowed to compete in another match later in the tournament.
The first win of the day came in Luhrs’ match against Jose Barillas, a Fairfield Warde High School wrestler. The competitors spent the entirety of the first period with their arms locked together, fighting for a take-down opportunity.
In the second period, Luhrs started in the bottom position— a defensive position where a wrestler starts the period beneath the other and attempts to escape to gain a point. Luhrs successfully escaped and gained the point lead. Luhrs’ opponent then used an illegal headlock, and Luhrs was awarded a point. In the third period the opponent scored a point by escape, but by waiting out the clock, Luhrs won the match 2-1.
Shortly after, Blacksburg had his second match of the day and lost in the first period by a takedown and pin to Ian McCubrey from Nashua South High School, ending his tournament run with three wins and two losses.
After continuing to the next round of matches, Luhrs faced his second competition of the day by nearly taking down Jimmy Nelson, his Salem High School opponent, but he failed his pin attempt, giving his opponent a point for escape. In the second period, Luhrs started in the bottom position and earned a point by escaping. As the two wrestlers grappled, the referee called stalling on Luhrs, ending the second period 1-2 with Nelson in the lead.
Things started to go downhill for Luhrs in the third period, when Nelson gained a significant amount of points by taking down Luhrs, and continued to gain points from Luhrs’s stalling. Luhrs was able to get another escape, but his opponent was also able to get another take down and acquire more points throughout the match which ended with the Salem wrestler winning, 2-10. This ended Luhrs’ tournament run with three wins and two losses.
The last wrestler in line to compete was Bernier, with her first match of the day being against Kayla McDonough, a Whittier High School wrestler. The match started as a struggle, with Bernier being taken down in the first period. However, she avoided being pinned which allowed her to continue the match, but simultaneously placed the Whittier High School wrestler in a lead of 0-3. Starting from the neutral position, Bernier was able to get her opponent off balance, take her down, and roll her on her back for a pin in the second period.
In her second match, Bernier was up against Samantha Bennett, a Windham High School wrestler, and in the first period Bernier attempted a bulldog maneuver, wherein the wrestler in control attempts to leverage their opponents arm to turn them on their back while facing towards them. Bernier failed however, and went into the second period 0-0. In the second period, the Windham opponent executed a cross-face cradle maneuver by locking Bernier’s left arm and leg together in a grip and rolling her onto her back, pinning her and causing Bernier to lose the match.
“I ended up in a situation where I didn’t know what to do next, leading to my eventual loss,” Bernier said. “My goal by [the state tournament] is to be more situationally aware so that doesn’t happen again.”
While this loss meant that Bernier couldn’t win the tournament, because of a tied score, Bernier was given another match to determine if she would take fifth or sixth place in her weight class. Due to a scheduling misunderstanding however, Bernier missed her last match, and ended her tournament run with one win, two losses, and a forfeit by absence, as well as taking sixth place in the 165 pound weight class.
Bernier’s achievement at this tournament marks a broader achievement for WA Wrestling as a team. While the wrestling team mostly operates as a unisex organization with a unisex roster, and they attend smaller events that host matches between boys and girls, girls’ wrestling is still an established part of WA athletics.
“Olivia Bernier became the first place-winner in Westford Academy [Girls’] Wrestling history,” Rich said. “While girls’ wrestling has only been around for a few years, this is still a major milestone for our program.”
Despite being a very physical sport, wrestling comes with other mental challenges that Rich is proud of his athletes for facing.
“The biggest challenge in a tournament like the Lowell Holiday Tournament is the length of the day,” Rich said. “Some wrestlers are at the venue for eight hours before they even step on the mat. It’s easy to get into your own head during that time. I was proud of how our wrestlers stayed motivated, focused, and continued to want to be there and compete.”
