Wrestling had a successful season with senior Connor Kozanecki qualifying for the State tournment after winning fifth at the Sectional tournament.

Connor Kozanecki, Peter Weitgenant, Frankie Salcedo, Dallas Dinkla, and Alex Carbajal also competed at the Sectional tournament.

At Regionals, Weitgenant placed second, and Kozanecki, Salcedo, Dinkla, and Carbajal all placed third.

Sports this year for North has been unique all around. The wrestling team specifically faced multiple challenges, but also had many successes for the season. With the pandemic still around, the wrestling team did not fail to still put in their best effort and commitment. With Collin McKillip as their coach, the wrestlers of GNHS gave a run for their money for the 2021-2022 season.

As mentioned, being with the wrestling team has its challenges.

“Sometimes you gotta cut weight, and that’s not good. You can either cut one pound, or cut five, and you have to do that in a day or two, so you just have to be on a diet, and it hurts your body. The conditioning and the working out takes a toll on your body,” Kozanecki said.

There are challenges in every role of a team, including a manager position. Senior Kyelee Garcia, wrestling manager, gives a good idea on what these challenges are like.

“There is some pressure if you are put at a head table at a meet. Everyone is depending on you to not miss the score or get it wrong. I was not at the head table last meet at Lakes, but the very first match at the head table, our JV manager and the Lakes JV manager all messed up,” Garcia said.

The wrestling team would love to see new faces in the coming years because it is important that their line-up is filled. The less wrestlers they have, the more likely it is that they will have to have a forced forfeit, due to not having a matched weight class for the opposing team.

“I think there are 12 or 13 spots for varsity. I think 106 weight classes all the way up to 285, and there are five or eight pounds in between each weight class, so we need to fill each one of those spots. But JV and freshman can be as small or big as they need. I believe we had two freshmen this year; we just need to fill the varsity line-up,” Kozanecki said.

The wrestling team is big on supporting each other and making improvements day by day. They want to see each other succeed in the sport and continue to motivate each other.

“Watching them all grow from what they used to be, like they were little freshmen, some of them did not know how to do anything, and then they grew to be amazing wrestlers. I love to see it,” Garcia said.

“Everyone is there to get better and to make their body better and to challenge themselves so no one is really there to mess around, so everyone has the same purpose,” Kozanecki said.