Wrestling season just like other athletics, would be different this year. Things began in late November with the JV Warrenton tournament. Under COVID-19 rules, meets and practices were looking a bit different than it did in 2019. 

Due to COVID-19 exposure the season was at a halt, right  before winter break. In that time frame, a home tournament that would have taken place on December 19, was cancelled. 

“Aside from the normal COVID requirements, there wasn’t anything else we needed to do to protect our wrestlers,” stated Athletic Director Alex Huck. 

The average season would have wrestlers in hotels over the weekend. Unfortunately due to COVID-19 that did not happen. Due to this, the wrestling team was able to hold more small one day tournaments. Most of these tournaments happened on Saturday and held up to five other schools. 

Head Coach Michael Wakim commented, “We had a lot of youth, a lot of first and second year kids wrestle against fifth, sixth, and seventh year kids. Our effort is there, I just think our technique needs to catch up. But overall I think we had a good year.”

On the boys team and girls team there were a total of 26 wrestlers. Out of those 26 there were a large amount of underclassmen. Those underclassmen would have a huge role on the team as they had to step up and wrestle varsity. 

Sophomore Tyson Ellison stated, “I like to think we still had that home advantage and I think we did a great job limiting the effect that COVID had on our season.” 

With restrictions on travel, the teams were able to host more home meets. Most of these meets took place on Saturday between  four or five schools. An addition of six meets would now take place at Battle. The tournaments lasted up to five or six hours however they would only last one day.

Thankfully, there was almost a full season for these athletes. The last scheduled home meet was January 22.