The Walpole Wrestling Team started on the right foot in their first home dual meet of the season, yesterday December 11, against the Norwood Mustangs. The Rebels won by a score of 53-30 with outstanding performances from senior Captains Eric Jansen and Caleb Cofsky as well as juniors Trevor Wassel and Noah Kung.
The Rebels started the meet off with a quick pin at the 106-pound weight class from sophomore Joe Delaney. Delaney, a second year wrestler, remarked, “I wanted to set the tone early for my team, I went out on the mat looking for the pin.” The Rebels climbed up through the weight classes up to the 132-pound weight class in which Cofksy wrestled. Cofsky took his opponent down with ease and proceeded to rack up several sets of back points. After realizing that he would soon achieve victory by means of technical pin fall (similar to the slaughter rule in baseball), Cofsky put his opponent on his back and pinned him. The next weight class was the 138-pound class in which Jansen would dominate his opponent, getting the technical pin fall. Jansen’s match looked quite similar to his co-captain but he did not realize how close he was to achieving victory by technical pin fall rather than a regular pin. Jansen said, “I would of much rather have gotten the pin but it is what it is, I still won.” The Rebels racked up a couple more wins before getting to the 160-pound weight class. This weight class, one of the tougher ones in the state, belongs to junior Trevor Wassel. Wassel, who has been wrestling for the majority of his years, would win his match by several points, coming close several times to pinning his opponent. With that win, Wassel maintained his undefeated record, which he started this past weekend on Saturday, December 8, at the King Phillip Jeff Parker Memorial Tournament. He wrestled incredibly well through the whole tournament, made it into the finals where he won and take first in the tournament. Wassel said, “It felt good, it was my first high school tournament that I won. It made me feel like this is the year that I really make a name for myself.” In the 220-pound weight class, junior Noah Kung, also would win his match against Norwood by means of a pin in the first period. Kung also remains undefeated this season and would take first in the Jeff Parker Memorial Tournament, dominating his opponents all the way through the finals.
The team as a whole placed fourth in the Jeff Parker Memorial Tournament, which was outstanding for the team and showed that they were not to be underestimated. Beating Norwood makes the Rebels 1-0 for the season so far and the team feels a lot more confident in themselves. Jansen remarked, “I thought last night was a solid start to the season and it felt good knowing that a lot of kids walked away with individual wins.” Despite winning the dual meet against the Mustangs, there were several losses that the team did suffer. The team will look to improve upon these losses and learn from their mistakes this weekend , Saturday, December 15, when they square up with Canton, North Quincy and Hingham in the season’s first quad meet.
