Young Warhawks boys wrestling team develops during season

Published by editor on Mon, 03/18/2024 - 9:27am

Brooks Jones wrestles his opponent during one of the Warhawks’ meet this year. Photos by Daniel Westhoff.

By:

Kevin Labotka

Sports Editor

The season was one that saw the West Fork Warhawks boys wrestling grow throughout the year according head coach Daniel Westhoff. Westhoff said that the Warhawks faced a lot of adversity and that the team was young as well with three freshmen wrestling varsity matches.

“They took their lumps but I was happy with the growth and development they made,” Westhoff said. “There were some positives for sure.”

One positive for Westhoff was how the team handled adversity as there were times where some of the wrestlers went through losing streaks during the season.

“Their ability to stay the course and to keep battling,” Westhoff said. “Even when things were not going great. I think that was really encouraging to see and just how they competed and they put in good practices and got after it.”

One thing that Westhoff said he would like to see from the team to help them take the next steps next year is to do work in the offseason. Another thing is to work on getting stronger and bigger as well.

“Three of our four guys were freshmen. So they are going to be developing physically and that honestly is my number one thing,” Westhoff said. “We’ve got to get faster and stronger so that is a commitment to strength conditioning in the offseason and hopefully they will commit to that and change their bodies for the better.”

With a majority of the team being freshmen, Westhoff said that this season can help them all grow and develop for the future thanks to how close their bond is from this past season.

“It was a tight knit family bond,” Westhoff said. “I think the fact that they went through some of those struggles together, nobody was really head and shoulders above the others. Overall we were truly in it together and I think that shared struggle is going to let those guys lean on each other. I think that sting or frustration of losing that is what will fuel the guys in the offseason and they will stick together and stick with it and get stronger in the offseason and get ready for next year.”