By Alex Clark ’20
The Bellarmine varsity wrestling team executed a wildly successful 2018-2019 campaign. The team went undefeated in all of their competitions, captured a league tournament title, and placed 4th in CCS. While the wrestling team enjoyed a relatively successful season, they experienced multiple setbacks. I asked wrestler Andrew Wilson ‘19 about these hardships. “I would say the biggest problem this year was mainly injuries. In my four years of wrestling, I’ve never been on a team that has had this many injuries,” he said. Many of these injuries came to their top wrestlers, but the Bells continued to dominate each opponent they faced.
However, one victory in particular against Serra proved to be the cornerstone of the season. Andrew provided background on the difficulties the team faced coming into the tournament. “We went into the Serra dual meet extremely injured. Three of our better wrestlers were injured, and we were supposed to get [beat badly],” he said.
The Bells managed to overcome adversity despite not having a healthy roster. “The Serra coach actually laughed when he saw our line up because we had so many guys injured… but a lot of people stepped up at that meet, we got pins when we needed pins, and I was lucky enough to be the last match of the night. I ended up winning the match and securing the victory for our team. I haven’t seen coach that happy in a long time. It was truly a great moment,” he said.
In the CCS tournament, Andrew took 6th place and shared his thoughts on the accomplishment. “Obviously it feels great to take 6th out of everyone in the CCS tournament. There are a lot of great wrestlers, and no [one] expected me to finish as high in the rankings as I did. But overall it was just a great moment,” he said. 78 teams competed in the CCS tournament, and only wrestling powerhouses Gilroy High School, Evergreen Valley High School and Los Gatos High School finished above Bellarmine.
One of the highlights that Andrew mentioned from this season was the load which some of the freshmen were able to carry in an injury-ridden season. “I think the biggest take away from this season was, it doesn’t matter who you are, or what you are ranked, or how old you are. You can still win matches and be successful. We had a couple of freshmen who came in and wrestled well.. [they] ended up ranking in CCS, who had never wrestled before, and went from that to winning matches in the CCS tournament,” he said.
Andrew hopes that this season’s success will encourage all wrestlers to perform at their maximum potential next year. “It doesn’t matter how good your competition is or who you face, you’re just as good, if not better, as long as you just compete and try your best.”
