Wrestling takes five to Regionals, two to State

Erin Clevlen

Juniors Mason Vidrine and Gabriel Lensing advance to State wrestling tourney on Feb. 20-21.

Lauren Kriss, Editor-In-Chief

At the district wrestling tournament on Feb. 7, five members of the wrestling team qualified for regionals. Junior Captain Mason Vidrine placed second, followed by junior Captains Justin Lovelace and Gabriel Lensing taking third in their respective weight classes. Sophomores Steven Ward and Nathan Sloey placed fourth in their weight classes and will advance to Regionals. Freshman Jonathan Kelly made fourth alternate and junior Sean Morales made fifth alternate.

“Everyone gets to go to district,” Lensing said. “But getting through district is harder. I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it through to regionals.”

Lensing’s teammate, Lovelace, was less anxious about the tournament.

“I felt pretty confident that I’d make it through district,” Lovelace said.

According to Lensing, everyone on the team had a unique strategy at the district tournament.

“Everybody had a different strategy,” Lensing said. “The freshmen were just aggressive. The older guys used the knowledge [about wrestling] that they had [in order to] win.”

The amount of time the team spends practicing, usually about two hours a day, also helped the team at district.

“It’s a lot of hours [we spend] trying to get better,” Lovelace said.

Lensing accredited the team’s success to their teamwork.

“We stick up for each other and cheer each other on,” Lensing said. “We’re one big family.”

At the regional tournament on Feb. 14, Vidrine and Lensing qualified for the state tournament on Feb. 21 at the Culwell Center in Garland, TX.

Now that regionals are over, Lovelace is looking forward to continued improvement of the team.

“We have a lot of people committed to this team and we’re just going to get better,” Lovelace said.