Using the “McGurl” move, named after Dan McGurl ’14, Alex Humphreys ’15 took control of his match and came in third, just behind McGurl himself, who came in first in the 285-pound weight class when Andover dominated the Northern New England Invitational this weekend.
Andover came out of the tournament with four first place finishes, five second place finishes, two third place finishes and one fourth place finish.
The team placed a wrestler in the top four of every weight class they competed in except for the 106-pound class.
“We did great, we won the team score by about 70 points. We had by far the most wrestlers in the championship match, as well as the [third] place match,” said McGurl.
Because of forfeits and injuries, McGurl wrestled in only two matches in order to become the 285-pound champion. McGurl’s first opponent from Milton ran at him right as the match started. McGurl took this opportunity to end the match and pinned down his opponent in just seconds.
“In the finals match, however, it was a lot tougher, my opponent was a two-time All-American who I’ve wrestled in the past,” continued McGurl. “My conditioning won me that match; we went into overtime, tied 1-1 and went all the way to sudden death overtime, where I escaped from the bottom to win the match.”
Bennett Sherr ’17, who was wrestling in the 113-pound weight class, pinned two of his three opponents.
“Going into the tournament, Coach Gorham said that Lawrence Academy was the favorite, even though we had won the tournament six times in a row, so everyone was motivated to do really well,” said Humphreys.
Co-Captain Christian Vallis ’14 championed the 132-pound weight class, pinning three of his opponents in the first period. Entering the finals, Vallis’ confidence did not waver and he beat his last opponent with a final score of 9-0.
“We definitely performed the best as a team. We didn’t win all of our individual matches, but we had nine guys in the finals, with four first placers. We worked hard and won matches that we were not expected to, which gave us a huge team score win,” said Humphreys.
After winning his first varsity meet ever the Wednesday before the tournament, Elijah Aladin ’15 came in third in the 160-pound weight class, taking advantage of his opportunity to wrestle at the varsity level.
Tom Daly ’16, who came in second in the 126-pound weight class, ended the day with a concussion, which may put him out for a portion of the season. Daly hopes to be well for Interschols this Friday.
