The Mustang wrestling team has “come a long way” according to head coach Brad Borkowski, as the team prepares for the Regional Qualifier Tournament.

Although the team’s training regimen started in late November, Ryan Carpenter started an intense training program over the summer at the Olympic Training Center. “I got a lot of training this summer, so the technical aspect of my skill set has improved a lot,” stated Carpenter. The regimen had Carpenter practice eleven times a week.

“We had a two hour practice twice a day except on Wednesday and Saturdays.” said Carpenter. He came into the season prepared unlike, “the guys that have no idea what they are doing,” said Borkowski.

The 2013-2014 season has been said to be, “very similar to last year’s season,” according to coach Borkowski, due to the fact that the team lacks a large amount of seniors. The leaders of the team are predominantly Juniors. Some notable Juniors this season include Billy Ryan, Dominic Frankmore, and Michele Payce. According to Frankmore, “the season had a normal start like most sport seasons do, pretty slow at first, and then after Christmas when all the breaks are over it starts to pick up.”

Throughout the season, all wrestlers had their personal ups and downs in their performances, but as a team the season has been going well. The team’s improvement throughout the season has not been a speculation, their improvement showed after Christmas break when the team beat three teams in a tournament, that they had lost to earlier in the season.

All of the hard work put in will hopefully pay off tomorrow, Feb. 14th, at the Regional Qualifier Tournament. Some wrestlers to keep note of tomorrow and Saturday (Feb. 15th) are Billy Ryan, Ryan Carpenter, Lucas Swanda, Dominic Frankmore, and Michele Payce.

 By Marcus Rodholm and Sam Weiss