With intramurals and the winter season right around the corner, the wrestling team here at Shadow Ridge is back, working harder than ever, and looking forward to making this their best season yet.
Wrestler at Shadow Ridge for 3 years, senior, Jacobi Gledhill says, “I started wrestling because all of my brothers have done it before and my uncle was the head coach when I started so I just wanted to give it a try during summer practices before my freshman year and that’s when I met Dani. We both started to love it and I decided to do it during the season.”
It’s important, especially in sports, to have that big support system. Even having close family and friends as either her coach, teammate, or anything like that just makes the athlete push themselves more and try new things out.
Senior Danielle Franco stated, “The conditioning is the hardest part of being a wrestler and just also making sure of having a good mindset.”
Wrestling is a challenging sport on its own, but she faces an even greater test by competing against opponents of varying genders and sizes, requiring her to adapt her techniques and strategies for each match.
Franco says, “They are both very different and have their own skills but it’s what you put into a match you can either beat a man or a woman.”
Sophomore, Makayla Power, who has been on varsity since freshman year, stated, “We do off season training which is mostly weights and conditioning to keep us in shape and to make us stronger, we also have some few off season tournaments to go to. This is also a great time to get your mental state right.”
Working to get herself in the right weight class can take a lot of strong mentality and being able to control what she wants.
Gledhill says, “You have to eat. You may think it’s better to not when cutting but if you don’t eat you’re not going to have any energy at all. You have to eat but just in a calorie deficit, you also should be eating healthy food, and stay super hydrated.”
With the love and support that each and every wrestler gets on Shadow Ridge’s Wrestling Team, it pushes them to want to be better for not just themselves but also for all of their supporters who cheer them on no matter what. Wrestling has a lot of accomplishments and Shadow Ridge is looking forward to a great season.
