Sports Wrestling

Three Straight Losses Stall Momentum on the Mat

After taking a tough hit from his Northfield Mount Hermon (NMH) opponent, Kal Parvanov ’16 successfully completed a single-leg takedown to secure key points for Andover Wrestling in the Bidstrup Duals.

Parvanov’s win helped propel Andover to a 42-27 victory over NMH, but the team went on to fall 33-42, 40-42 and 33-40 to Avon Old Farms, Tabor and Long Island Lutheran, respectively. The four matches on Saturday brought Andover’s record to 4-10.

Against NMH, the team squared off with confidence and persistence. Pins from Parvanov, Alex Cleveland ’17 and Pierce Bausano ’18 all contributed to Andover’s decisive victory.

Parvanov said, “For the entire tournament, I had two wins and two losses. To win, I tried my best to avoid being on bottom and really tried to focus on my strategy and technical moves, like my front-headlock, head throw and single-leg takedown.”

“My main strategy was to prevent my opponent from using his weight against me, since I am 30 pounds lighter than most of the guys in the 220 weight class. That is why I heavily relied on sprawls, headlocks and head throws,” added Parvanov.

Bausano said, “I think [our] team came out with the same effort and mentality [we] had for our other meets that day, but we just matched up better with the NMH team. Despite all the close losses that day, the big win over NMH helped to show the team that our hard work in practice was paying off.”

Andover started off strong against Avon Old Farms with decisive wins from Co-Captain Justin Muchnick ’16, David Moon ’17 and Adam Cohen ’18. However, these impressive individual performances were not enough to secure the victory. Similar to the Avon Old Farms match, the team started off strong against Tabor and Long Island Lutheran with pins from Christian Milotte ’16, Moyo Oyebode ’18 and Alex El Adl ’19. The team, however, struggled to find its momentum and dropped points in crucial situations.

Muchnick said, “We struggled against Avon Old Farms, Tabor and Long Island Lutheran because we lost a lot of really close matches. We struggled to finish our matches strong, and we need to make sure that we maintain the little things. We need to get the majors instead of the decisions, get the pins before the majors, and we also need to score more bonus points. Overall, it was a good effort by our team.”

Cohen said, “Most of the teams at the meet were actually some of the top teams in New England. Even though we didn’t win, everyone did pretty well and each person had some close matches overall.” Determined to avenge its losses, Andover will wrestle at Northerns on Saturday.