This past Saturday, 15 members of the Wrestling team competed in the Northern New England Invitational Tournament (Northern’s) in Bath, Maine. Andover placed second overall, finishing behind Eaglehill. Individually, Andover had four champions and eight additional placers.
The Andover champions included Julian Rios ’26 at 113 pounds, Brady Haskell ’28 at 120 pounds, Dani Nugent ’25 at 138 pounds, and Sebastian Haferd ’25 at 215 pounds.
Sean Flynn ’27 praised Reece York ’26 for an impressive performance in his first tournament after a two-year long hiatus due to injury. York went 3-1 and placed third in his weight class.
“Last year, [York] broke his arm and was out the whole season. He didn’t partake in any meets or tournaments. Because of that, it was very impressive that he came into his first tournament in the past two years swinging,” said Flynn.
Competing in his first-ever tournament, Christian Robinson ’28 put on an impressive display, finishing as the runner-up in his weight class. His strong performance did not come as a surprise to teammate Narek Hambardzumyan ’26, who credited Robinson’s dedication and confidence on the mat.
“He also has been working hard throughout this entire season and he showed it at the meet… It’s a really great performance from him. He knows what he’s gonna do, and there’s also a specific move that he always does during his matches. When he comes in the match, he has that mindset of ‘It’s gonna work and I’m gonna win.’ When you watch him wrestle, you know that he’s gonna go for it,” said Hambardzumyan.
With a lot of major tournaments approaching, Flynn noted that the team will not have time to focus on physical conditioning and strength. Instead, he stressed the importance of refining technique, believing it to be more important than strength in a wrestling match.
“We could work on technique. At this moment, we are rushing into these big tournaments, and right now, we don’t really exactly have enough time to work on things like physical endurance. I always say to myself that technique beats strength in wrestling. Julian Rios, for example, has a lot of technique. He’s also strong, but he has proven to everybody else that his techniques shine above anybody’s strength. That’s why he wins tournaments,” said Flynn.
Hambardzumyan emphasized the importance of continual improvement, explaining that even small skills can make a big difference. He specifically highlighted sprawling, a defensive move to counter takedowns, as an area for further refinement.
“We have been working on some sprawling, when somebody shoots on you and tries to take you down and you sort of kick your legs back pretty much to defend it. That’s something I wanted to work on personally, and maybe for the team too. We’ve worked on it generally throughout the season, but again, even if you’ve been working on it for the entire season, you can always work on it more,” said Hambardzumyan.
As the season nears its end, both Flynn and Haskell expressed confidence in the team’s ability to have wrestlers qualify for major events like New Englands and Nationals. Flynn also emphasized that, regardless of the outcome, the team’s focus should remain on improving for next year.
“We’re doing well and I hope that the majority of the wrestlers here can qualify in Class A so that we can go to New Englands. Hopefully, next year we’ll have an even better season as well. Even if some of our wrestlers do not qualify for New Englands, we should just look forward to next year, take our losses, and strive to be better next year,” said Flynn.
“Everyone on the team has a really good shot of making it far this year. There’s a lot of kids that can go to New Englands and Nationals. The team is looking really good right now,” said Haskell.
All-Gender Wrestling is set to compete at the Class A Tournament this upcoming Saturday.
