Molly Keshin
Sports Editor
@mollykCourant
Coming off of an 8-12 season last winter, the wrestling team is ready to return stronger than ever. After losing seniors Aidan Donovan, Logan Hart, Malaki Holan, and Evan Zimmer, senior tri-captains Will Arliss, Andrew DeFranco, and Cass Knox are looking to lead the team to a successful season. Last winter, the team finished 8th
in the FCIAC tournament.
Head coach Paul Gallo feels that while the team is striving to have more wins this season, the overlap of the football season breaks up the flow of the team. “Hopefully we can be right around the .500 range, because it’s very hard to fill all of the weight classes,” Coach Gallo said. “The football team has made the State finals five years in a row, so I don’t get them to start wrestling matches until January. Because of this, they’re not doing as well as they could be because they’re lacking the experience from not being there. It’s just the little things.”
Cass feels that even though the seniors they lost were some of the strongest members of the team, the returning players are prepared to fill their shoes. “They were all good, experienced leaders so we will miss that,” Cass said. “We’ve got a lot of guys with a lot of varsity wrestling experience coming back this year so I think we’re going to have a more successful season and even more fun.”
While every team in New Canaan looks forward to competing against rival school Darien, the wrestling team is looking to take on the challenge of facing some of the league’s better teams such as Trumbull, Fairfield Warde,
and Danbury. “I am looking forward to competing against against the Danbury team because we should crush them this year,” Will said. “I feel that if we are able to at least fill up most weight classes, we will have the talent to be a solid team. We have some strong freshmen coming up who could really contribute to our team, and as a whole we have a group of kids who I know are eager to succeed.”
With their first match on December 16 at Trumbull, Coach Gallo feels that the key to success this season is staying in shape. “The biggest thing is getting in condition, because it takes 10 weeks to get in really good condition,” Coach Gallo said. “For the first match, I will not have any of my football players, which means I might have to take 5 or 6 guys out of 14 weight classes. You have to do what you have to do, it’s just a little hard without my older guys there.”
