After a miniature season in 2020 and 2021, Bear River is looking to grapple their way back and have a successful wrestling season this year.
Bruin Wrestlers are setting goals and conquering boundaries as they practice and have preseason scrimmages.
Junior Jacob Sutherland talked about the small season that took place over COVID-19 quarantine and about the participation in this year’s season.
“It was short and there weren’t very many people, but there was a season,” he said. “We have a lot of freshmen and I think like 15, which is really good, but we still need more people to fill the weight classes.”
Sutherland and Junior Grace Gurrola detailed how Thursday’s scrimmage at Nevada Union went.
“It was good,” said Sutherland. “Our experienced wrestlers won. A lot of us have a lot of things to learn. I won. The ref was kind of bad because it was just a high school kid. I beat the kid 4-2. He was really strong and tall and experienced and kind of better than me.”
“Pretty well. All of us wrestled to the best of our abilities, even including the new kids. I beat [a] boy 19-0.”
Junior Caleb McGehee talked about the goals he has for this season, and some of the success and failures he has had in the past.
“[My goal is] to win the PVLs,” he said. “[B]ecause… Freshman year, I got second and I could have easily won it but I messed up mid match. Currently I’m just facing the challenge of being out of shape, and losing a lot of the mechanics and technique that I had in previous years. This year I pretty much started fresh and that was rough. Last year I didn’t really wrestle because there was, like, no wrestling season. It was COVID, so all they really did was practice. Freshman year was a pretty good season.”
Gurrola similarly talked about her goals for the season and the challenges she is facing.
“Just to try my best and put in the maximum effort,” she said. “Mentally, my challenges are trying to push myself to keep going but my teammates help with that, pushing me to be my best, And my coaches actually.”
McGehee gave a brief explanation of how scoring works in wrestling, and how one wins a match.
“Like any other sport, there’s a rule set,” said McGehee. “This rule set has ways to score. So there’s takedowns, you get two points, and then a breakaway, so if you break away from your opponent, you get one point. There’s back points where, if you hold them more than 90 degrees, their back to the mat, you can start to score points depending on how long you hold them there. You can win the match overall by pinning, or if you go 13 points over them you automatically win by what’s called a tech.”
