As the upcoming dawn of the season starts, it assures a thrilling show composed of strategy, sheer physicality, and determination. With a huge update to the roster going from thirty wrestlers to an astounding sixty-eight this year.

      “We’re thrilled for the season and we didn’t expect a turnout of sixty-eight people”, says coach Ricart, “We’re looking forward to a great year and we have a much younger team”.

Coach Ricart the Wrestling Coach has been very welcoming to the newcomers, preparing them for the season and to enjoy the sport.  So how did the team suddenly get so much attention?

     Mason Harsch and Maci Steemmon, two returning wrestlers that helped with the recruitment of many people. They organized an offseason practice gathering as many people as they could that were interested in the sport. 

     “We were able to get many amazing girls to join our preseason all thanks to Athenian school and social marketing”, said Maci and Mason,” We just want to leave it a better place than when we came in and it helps a lot to see the team grow this much and we just hope they enjoy the sport and community just as much we do.”

     Thanks to Maci and Mason the girls team has found lots of success. The girls team went from around five to six people to fifteen tripling the amount of participants in the team in only a year.      They were not alone as Trevor Economos, a returning wrestler from last year that helped spread the word to people who he knew.

     “After last year’s season I wouldn’t stop talking about wrestling and after some time my friends became interested”, said Trevor,”It’s always so much fun to see more people enjoy the sport that you love and it’s always great to see more friends at the Wrestling meets.”

     Many people joined the team because of the similarity to jujitsu. Neal Stood one of the new kids said,

     “We did Jujitsu before so we thought this would be a good sport to carry on or just a better alternative.” 

      This season Maci and Mason have taken the leadership role helping out with the coaching staff. Their goal this year is to help the newcomers as well as leave a legacy in the hopes someone else will follow in their footsteps helping grow the team.