In his first match back from injury, Ellerman Mateo ‘21 faced a Division 1 wrestling recruit and second place finisher in New England’s, but made it through all three periods and only lost by five points. At the Seabrooke Duals, Andover Wrestling won several matches but ultimately fell to Northfield Mount Hermon 63-7. The team went on to prevail over Tabor and Portsmouth Abbey, scoring 69-6 and 58-18 respectively. The team’s record at the Duals was 2-1.
Co-Captain Pablo Sanchez ’19 faced a challenging opponent and his match went to an overtime period, according to Mateo.
“[Sanchez] was in a tightly intense match from a guy from NMH, and I think it was overtime and in overtime the first person who does a take down wins, and he was able to get the first take down and won..and then Vincent [Marino PG’19] went into overtime as well, and unfortunately he made a mistake and so his opponent was able to get behind him and take the 2 [points], so the score was 1-3. Another highlight was Arnav [Bhakta ’22], [where] he started off the matching by taking down NMH really well,” said Mateo.
This week the team worked to improve on its positions, according to Riggs McGrath ’21.
“We definitely improved on all our positions, we felt a lot strong[er] and basically we stayed off our [knees] a lot more, it’s been something we have been working on and our top game is looking a lot better and we are feeling a lot in control,” said McGrath. “We definitely need to work on setting up our shots and working on our angles because we have good shots but we need to hit them at the right times and hit them with a good set up.”
Additionally, the team is working to improve on its movement and responses to unfamiliar positioning, according to Mateo.
Mateo said, “A lot of times we wouldn’t move or sprawl, and our coach would always be like ‘move, move, move!’ and we would just kinda stay. And for me, I was put into positions where I wouldn’t know how to react and so I just kinda sat there, and that’s how he was able to get points on me. We got pinned a lot of times because people would run half nelsons on us and we wouldn’t keep our heads up enough, and also mentally too, because we knew NMH was a great team and as people got pinned, it was a blow to our self esteem.”
Next Saturday, the team will travel to Northerns for a match.