Summer Wrestling For The Brunswick Blue Devils!
Getting Ready For A Big Transition...
We wrestled Nick more in the Summer to prepare him for high school wrestling.
He attended the Wrestle for Autism tournament where he went 3-2, losing to a wrestler with the last name of Watson twice. The first match he was pinned and the second match he wrestled much better losing by decision 4-3.
At the two Baldwin Wallace Duals tournaments...they were scheduled on consecutive weekends...he went 9-1 with 7 of his wins coming by way of fall. His single loss was to Alec Benedetti, a scrappy Senior from N. Royalton. He lost by decision 4-3.
One of the highlights of this Summer, in terms of wrestling, for him was taking a trip down to Florida with his Brunswick teammates to participate in the AAU Scholastic Duals, commonly known as the Disney Duals. It's a great National tournament that brings talent in from all over the U.S. Terrific opportunity to wrestle kids who have different styles and who you're not going to see during the regular season. He had a blast with his teammates and it's always a great trip for team bonding.
Coach Koshar liked what he saw of Nicky, who won 7 out of 11 matches. He was pinned 3 times, all by outgoing Seniors, young men who were headed to college. The other loss was a 10-5 decision. He wrestled good for an incoming Freshman however and 6 of the matches he won were from pins and the other was a 15-4 major decision. Good stuff.
Here's a couple pics of Nick. It's very obvious by his frame and face that Nick was very much in that transition stage from young teenager to the mid-teen years. Knowing that he was going to continue to physically mature throughout the season, and for the remainder of his high school career, we were able to understand that the losses he suffered during the off season were mostly due to his opponents being more physically mature. He was growing fast, still strength training, and Brunswick coaching staff was predicting that he would be the starting 132 lber. in his freshman year.
Knowing that Nick was coming into the light middle weight classes, I had tempered expectations on how he would fare in the beginning of his Freshman year.
While I have always had major confidence in his wrestling ability and mindset, the fact that there were so many GREAT wrestlers in those weight classes who were Juniors and Seniors and...who came into high school at the lightweight buzz-saw weight classes where technical proficiency ruled...definitely created some apprehension in this dads mind. The Brunswick Coaches however recognized his potential and some of the other intangibles that other kids just simply didn't have...and that can't be taught. They would prove to be correct.
This was also being forecasted by FloWrestling as they had Nick ranked 27th out of the top 50 wrestlers (Nationwide) coming into high school on the Freshman Class Big Board. As a side note...there were two of these freshmen who would go on to become NCAA National Champions in their true Freshman years in college. I always considered this peer group of Nick's as exceptionally talented. That proved to be the case.
That's pretty much all there is for this post. He only wrestled one other tournament...a local one held annually at Lutheran West. It was a Round Robin format and he pinned all 7 opponents, including a tough kid out of Parma named Tyler Workman.
Next post will resume at the start of Nick's freshman school year and his freshman wrestling season. Thanks for taking the time to read this! Very much appreciated and I'll try my darnedest to have that post ready for next weekend.
Take care.
