Sakina Cotton ’24 pins her opponent onto the mat.
Tayla Tildsley PG’23 takes the win.
In a meet-filled week, Andover Wrestling competed four times in five days from Saturday to Wednesday. The team’s dual meet record now stands at 12-5.
Andover Boys Wrestling went 2-1 in the Seabrook Duals on Saturday, winning against Avon Old Farms and Brooks, but falling to last year’s New England Champions, Northfield Mount Hermon (NMH). The team continued the momentum on Wednesday, defeating Thayer 78-6 and Governor’s 51-26.
According to Charles Vest ’25, the team has displayed dramatic improvement throughout the season, in great part due to the suggestions provided by experienced wrestlers to newer wrestlers.
“A lot of the time [the captains] will pull me or someone else aside after a match when you lose and say, ‘Hey, I noticed that you were doing this or this, you’re keeping your head down, you should have kept your head up.’… So I think that everyone’s really supportive and then the most experienced wrestlers and the captains are really good about actively watching your matches and paying attention and then giving you pointers and what you can do better,” said Vest.
Despite the one loss to NMH, the team was able to learn from the challenge, according to first-year wrestler Julian Rios ’26. Rios dominated with a 10-0 major decision over his NMH opponent.
“I think the team overall wrestled pretty well, but I guess we wrestled a really good team and it definitely showed that we needed to work on a lot of things. I think overall it was a good experience for everyone on the team to be able to see good wrestlers,” Rios said.
On the girls side, the team hosted the Ninth Annual Female Wrestling Tournament on Sunday, with 103 wrestlers from 30 different schools in attendance. Tasha Bohorad ’26 reflected on the positive atmosphere of the tournament.
“The coaches were running everything and supporting everyone. And some wrestlers didn’t have coaches there, so they were being really supportive of everyone and saying, ‘Good job,’ when we stepped off the mat. And after our matches, the coaches would go over moves, or just give really good feedback. I think a lot of us went against each other and it was like a really positive experience because, you know, we’re all friends, I just think that was really cool,” said Bohorad.
The team ultimately took the team title for the second year in a row, edging out Silver Lake Regional High School by 16 points. In addition to a workshop led by seven-time USA National Wrestling Team member Katherine Shai, Bohorad appreciated the opportunity to compete in several matches on Sunday.
“I love that you [could] wrestle two or three times [on Sunday] … I want to get as much out of it as I can and wrestle different people. Especially the clinic beforehand with Katherine Shai. It was just so fun to meet other people. I get more [out of it] than other meets,” Bohorad said.
On Wednesday, Andover Girls Wrestling returned to compete against wrestlers from Middlesex and Noble and Greenough, but fell short 3-8.
Andover Wrestling will compete at the Northern New England Wrestling Invitational on Saturday, in addition to hosting St. Sebastian’s School on Wednesday.
