Eric Hansen, humanities faculty:
Challenges: “January was very difficult because we weren’t allowed to wrestle in the wrestling room. We’ve been wrestling on the softball field. When it was raining, we were out there wrestling in the mud. It looked kind of like an army recruitment video, but the athletes seemed to love it. We weren’t allowed to have the four dual meets that we normally would’ve had, and I worried that without wrestling they would have atrophied. But actually, it’s kept everybody really fresh.”
Successes: “At the league team tournament, we took second place out of seven teams. We had the biggest team there, which considering three years ago we had a team of maybe eight people, it was really a growth. We had excellent performances at some weekend tournaments early in the season. Matthew Gooch (‘22) took first place at a major tournament at San Juan Capistrano. A number of wrestlers placed at a tournament in Corona. The team has been getting in better condition and much more technical in their skills and becoming much scrappier on the mat.”
Highlight Athlete: “Katie Arzate (‘23) is helping pioneer a girls’ program which we hope can grow at Webb. She came in not having wrestled at all before, and she’s won many matches including against boys. She went from a beginner to somebody who is going to seriously compete at CIF.”
Matthew Gooch (‘22):
Challenges: “We had a massive problem with COVID —the need of the wrestling room as a quarantine space and the Medical Advising Board saying that it wasn’t safe to be wrestling at the time —so we haven’t been able to have any regular practices since we came back from winter break. We weren’t allowed to wrestle for the first couple of weeks and now we are, but only outside. We’ve been wrestling on the softball field every day which kind of sucks. Especially, one day it was pouring rain and we were wrestling out there. It was not fun. I was soaking wet and covered in mud by the end of practice, and then we did sprints in the rain after that.”
Successes: “There were a lot of successes this season. I’d say the biggest one was the size of our team. Webb wrestling in my four years here has never been as big as it is now. We’ve got a lot of people who are just excited about wrestling and I’m looking forward to the future of the program because we have so many people that are interested in wrestling. My freshman year, I think we had six wrestlers, and my sophomore year, we had maybe eight and most of them were freshmen. This year we have a lot more, maybe 20 or over 20.”
Favorite Memory: “One of my favorite memories is going along with the team vibe. We all like each other. It’s a good team and we put up Christmas lights in the wrestling room and that’s one of my favorite things. It makes the room a lot more fun and provides some light when Mr. Ray’s office is locked, and we can’t access the light switch.”
