Solidifying his undefeated season, Post-Graduate (PG) Haroldo Nesbeth ’17, defeated all four of his opponents by pins, spending a total of just six minutes and 53 seconds on the mat at the New England Prep School Tournament. Andover Wrestling placed seventh out of 46 teams with a score of 72.5 points at New Englands at the Hyde School in Bath, Maine last Friday and Saturday.
Nesbeth’s dominant victories improved his individual season record to 22-0 in the 138-pound weight class.
“Haroldo Nesbeth had a very exciting number of matches, all of which ended up being pins of very good opponents,” wrote Eamon Garrity-Rokous ’20 in an email to The Phillipian.
PG John O’Brien ’17 placed seventh at the heavyweight class, matching Nesbeth’s 22 wins on the season. Co-Captain Pierce Bausano ’18 placed sixth in the 182-pound weight class and now has a total of 21 wins.
Garrity-Rokous said, “John O’Brien had a thrilling victory in his seventh place match by wrestling well off of bottom and in neutral. Pierce Bausano also gritted his teeth through a loss against a tough opponent from Exeter.”
Garrity-Rokous entered the tournament as an underdog, seeded at eight out of sixteen. Despite his odds, Garrity-Rokous won five matches throughout the tournament to finish fourth in the 145-pound weight class and tallied a total of 19 wins on the season.
“Eamon had what I deem to be the best takedown of the whole tournament. It came at the most crucial part of the day, the most crucial part of the match, and he executed it beautifully. It was perfect, we couldn’t have asked for better,” wrote Nesbeth in an email to The Phillipian.
Garrity-Rokous said, “I had a gritty 2-1 decision victory against the five seed in the tournament in order to ensure that I qualified for nationals. Overall, I think it was wrestling with heart that led us to the victories we had over the weekend.”
Except for Bausano, Garrity-Rokous, Nesbeth, and O’Brien, and the tournament marked Andover’s last meet of the season, and each athlete looked to perform at their best level.
“I think that many of our wrestlers really got into their swing on the second day of the tournament. We used our strengths to our advantage and did not let our weaknesses get to us. [We] stepped up their game and wrestled with heart, courage, and tremendous willpower,” said Garrity-Rokous.
After their strong showings at the tournament, Bausano, Garrity-Rokous, Nesbeth, and O’Brien have qualified to compete at the Prep School National tournament held this coming weekend at Lehigh University.
“Only [four] of us advanced to National Preps, unfortunately, but what we can do to get better is have the rest of the team help us maintain focus and push us to fine tune our technique. We also have to build stronger attitudes,” said Nesbeth.
“Our team hopes to continue to wrestle with heart over the course of this last week of wrestling, and we hope to have some all Americans next weekend or even a national champion with Haroldo Nesbeth. Although there aren’t many more moves that we can learn, we can still improve on our strengths and weaknesses in order to efficiently and effectively prepare for the wrestlers who are going to nationals,” said Garrity-Rokous.
Editor’s Note: Pierce Bausano is an Business Manager for The Phillipian.
