Perry Wrestling kicked back into gear Tuesday, November 26 at Mountain View High School, with matches against Mountain Ridge, Brophy, and Mesa Mountain View. With Returning wrestlers Jon Kimling, Tyler Rovnak, Ikaika Maldonado, Daniel Mendoza, and Alex Edjourian all hitting the mats after a year of training and preparation. With new additions adorning the roster as well, the varsity is full and firing on all cylinders. The team has been given fresh talent in wrestlers like Jacob Hanson a Junior at 195, or Adam Knowles at 220, and a 

Head coach Alexander Pavlenko led the team at Mountain View’s “campus of champions” and coached the team to an important early in the season victory.  The Pumas beat Brophy at 40-25 and Mountain Ridge at 46-33, showing that the program was back from losing some of their important wrestlers. But the Toros took them down 55-21, showing that the Mountain View program hadn’t lost steam since their third-place performance at state last year. Overall, Perry’s performance is an impressive start to the year.   

Another Away-meet was next on the plate for the team, this time an hour and a half south at Tuscon High Magnet School. In Tucson, the Pumas took on Tolleson, Tucson, and Westview, a selection of Division 1 Section 1 Teams that scored relatively low at state last year. After a long journey on the bus, the team still took home the gold at the end of the day. The Pumas cleaned up at the meet scoring a staggering 81-0 against Tolleson, 76-4 against Westview, and 51-27 against Tucson. Showing an absolute shut out in any sport is hard, but in wrestling where points can be scored at every second, blanking a team is an impressive feat.  Showing that the new Varsity line up is capable of taking down any challenger, whether that means taking on the consistently high ranked Toros, or mopping the floor with unranked Tolleson.

Puma Duals rounds off the first two weeks of Perry wrestling, two whole days of hitting the mats against many other teams. In round one, the Varsity A Pumas took on a team they’ve seen before in Mountain View, losing 74-3, but Varsity B took down Benjamin Franklin 72-6. Over the next six rounds, the Pumas in pools A and B would find themselves in drastically different circumstances, the Varsity A squad was 3-4 in sixth, while B sat comfortably in first. At the end of the night, however, the teams took Second and First respectively, and 285-pounder Alex Edjourian was awarded for his outstanding performance overall. Coach Pavlenko Commented on how the team was doing “We Wrestled pretty well so far, but there’s still work to do.”