Varsity wrestlers take to the mat for winter season

January 18, 2018

As winter falls upon Murrysville, Franklin Regional’s wrestling team takes to the mat in preparation of the upcoming winter season.

It’s no secret that in order to be successful at wrestling, one must have an arduous amount of dedication and diligence.

As a highly active sport, wrestling requires extreme focus, hours of practice, and concentration in order to achieve success within the sport.

“I actually started wrestling in sixth grade, which in wrestling, is actually pretty late in the game,” said senior wrestler Nate Smith.

According to Smith, it was through the influence of fellow senior wrestler Mark Prucnal that convinced him to start up the sport in the first place.

“It was the will to improve and succeed within the sport that motivated me to continue wrestling throughout high school,” said Smith.

For Prucnal, “It was my parents that got me involved in wrestling during my time in Elementary school. I decided to stick with it because it kept me in shape and I really enjoyed the sport and being a part of the team.”

For those interested, wrestling is not just about participating in competitions and matches, but also meeting weight class requirements.

One way to do this is cutting weight.

According to livestrong.com, a website dedicated towards health and safe athletic practices for athletes, cutting weight is a “restricted, but healthy, diet helps you lose weight more gradually, at a healthy rate of 1 to 2 pounds per week.”

For wrestlers, this usually includes watching intake and drinking lots of water.

“Getting down to a certain weight in order to compete is pretty hard for most of the team,” said Prucnal.

While meeting weight class requirements can be difficult, practices are also hard on the wrestlers.

“We usually run practice matches against one another during practices,” said Smith. “That and drills to keep us moving.”

According at to Prucnal, practice is usually concluded with continued drills, sprints, and live wrestling, where members of the team go up against one another for a certain amount of time.

Once the beginning of the wrestling season approaches, this exhausting and trying conditioning and practicing begins.

For this season, varsity wrestling practice began November 17th, according to the Franklin Regional Athletics Website.

Further along in the season come tournaments such as the King of the Mountain, Powerade, and WCCA tournaments, while WPIALs for varsity wrestling won’t begin until late January.

For Smith, wrestling remains in his future outside of high school.

“I do want to continue wrestling once I graduate,” said Smith. “I’ve been looking at schools such as Kent State and Pitt Johnstown.”

With practices well on their way and the wrestlers preparing and conditioning for upcoming matches, the Franklin Regional varsity wrestling season has begun in full swing.