On Saturday, Feb. 6, 2022, our Wakeland Varsity Wrestling teams battled their way through the District Tournament.

Due to the icy weather, wrestlers could not practice and prepare for the tournament for two days.

“The weather extremely impacted our wrestling this past weekend. We were unsure if we were even going to wrestle last week since our districts for the girls got canceled on Friday,” varsity wrestler junior Riley Deckert said. “Luckily for us though, we got to wrestle with the guys on Saturday.”

However, our Wolverines pulled through and were able to qualify ten team members for this coming week’s Regional Tournament.

Because of icy roads and bad weather the wrestlers were allowed a four pound allowance.

“We prepared for districts by going to camps, tournaments, drilling, going live, live situationals, and by maintaining a balanced diet,” varsity wrestler junior Leilani Babilonia said.

Like any other sport, wrestlers practiced and prepared to face off with their biggest competition yet.

“My biggest competition this weekend was against Frisco’s 128, Belen Rios. I wrestled her in the finals, which didn’t go exactly the way I wanted. But I’ll be seeing her again in the finals at Regionals and State to redeem myself,” Deckert said.

Juniors Natali Hattar, Babilonia, and Deckert all placed 2nd in their weight class. 

“My biggest competition was Liberty and I was nervous to see her at finals,” Babilonia said.

Senior Maryam Elbeltagy placed 3rd in her weight class.

“My biggest competition was my match against Rock Hill. I was pretty nervous and unfortunately I did lose, but it was the only match I lost at districts,” Elbeltagy said. 

Junior Pam Alvarez placed 4th in the 102 weight class. 

Senior Zack Miller and junior Larson Files both placed 1st in their weight class. 

“[My favorite thing about districts was] winning my 2nd district title,” Miller said. 

Junior Kyle Templeton placed 2nd in his weight class.

Junior Jackson Nodes placed 3rd in his weight class.

“My biggest competition had to be Vlad from Centennial High School. I wrestled him for my 1st match and 3rd place match. I won my first match against him 6-4 and later had to wrestle him again,” Nodes said. “I knew how he wrestled from the first match and used it against him to allow me to pin him in our second matchup to win 3rd place.”

Junior Shawn Kim placed 5th in his weight class. 

Our girls were able to place 4th overall, while the boys placed 5th. 

In order to prepare for districts, the team utilized time during practices. 

“My team and I prepared for districts all year long by having intense practices till 5:30 p.m. every school day and exposing ourselves to good competition to show us what it means to be at the top level,” Nodes said.

The team will continue to work hard up until Regionals by getting into the right physical and mental state in order to conquer the competition.

“Wrestling is a sport that requires you to be in peak physical and mental shape. So to prepare for that, there were a lot of long practices and talks to make sure we were all ready for this past weekend,” Deckert said. 

Come support your Wakeland Wolverines at Regionals this Fri. and Sat. at Memorial High School.