Even though the football team’s run reached its end, some players received no time to rest before being thrown into wrestling.

Junior regular Travis Calloway said, “We talk to coach about it (coming into wrestling late) and he is very lenient about understanding dual sport athletes.”

As previously observed, there are a couple dual athletes that participate in football in the fall and wrestling in the winter. Now that football has completed its season, the wrestling team is slowly starting to return to full form.

Coach Darren Johnson added, “Our football guys have only had three practices so far so we couldn’t wrestle them for all of our matches last weekend.”

During the Jerry Benson Invitational at Buckeye High a couple weeks ago, the team had two top six finishers in the whole tournament, Joe Abeita receiving second and Nico Dramicanin receiving sixth. The top six wrestlers in singles tournaments make the podium and medal so to have two means the team is performing well as a whole.

The team recently participated in the Pumas Duals, a Perry hosted invitational tournament. After beating teams from Gilbert, Shadow Ridge, Mesa, and multiple others, the Pumas ended with a 7-1 record. Their only loss of the night came to Safford, one of the top teams in state.

Varsity wrestler Joe Abeita stated, “Personally I went undefeated in the Puma Duals. I feel like we as a team are really strong right now and could beat anybody.”