Boys wrestling have officially started their season up with their first meet that took place on Saturday. With quite a few open weights they had four athletes that finished on the podium. Head coach Michael Jernigan shared what he thinks the team did at the first meet of the season.
“For us to go to the york tournament and place tenth as a team is pretty impressive,” Jernigan said. “Overall I’m really excited and happy, obviously there are a lot of things we need to get better at on and off the mat, but I was excited to be out and competing with overall a really good weekend.”
Two of the athletes that placed were the Packett brothers. Junior John Packett placed third at the tournament. He explained what he thinks of his performance and what he wants to improve on.
“I think I did pretty well at the first meet,” Packett said. “I think I could definitely improve and work on my bottom wrestling.”
A big senior class left the wrestling team. Coach Jernigan shared what are some improvements he hopes to make to make the team more successful.
“We are back to a young inexperienced team so we as coaches have to start over with the basics too,” Jernigan said. “We have to remind them of the set plans with diet and mindset, just a lot of little things on and off the mat like trustability, but very pleased with the attitude and effort with all the kids as we started the season with about 60 kids which is one of the biggest programs we have had in a long time.”
The team is heading into their second meet, the council bluffs classic. It is one of the best meets of the season. Packett explained his goals for the season.
“My goals for the rest of the season are just to get better,” Packett said. “I want to get better in all areas that can use some improvement.”
Coach Jernigan also shared his goals for the wrestling team this season.
“The wrestlers come up with the goals,” Jernigan said. “Every year we change our goal according to what we have as a program, we are in a pretty tough district but all districts are tough, going forward making those little goals, making sure we are healthy and injury free so we can get to end and qualify to state, I have seen crazy things happen at state tournaments, after we qualify you don’t know who is going to have the tournament of their life.”
