Central Middle School Wrestling Season Goes Downhill

Working harder and following directions could have a positive impact in the end. The Central Middle School wrestling team heads into their third match of the season with a record of 0-2. They took a defeat at their first match and the coaches were not happy, as they were stomping around and yelling at the team for misbehaving. The team got changed into their gear before helping roll out the mats and set up the chairs for the opposing team. They also were not at their best behavior during the preparation of the match, running around and not doing what they were supposed to. The coaches were already yelling at the wrestlers for not training hard enough during practice and now they weren't focusing on what they needed to do before the match. When the coach noticed it was taking longer than usual to get the mats ready he stood up and asked, "Where are all the eighth graders?" He got up and stomped his way to the locker room with a straight face and gave them a lecture. The team lost the match but were hopeful to get a win against their biggest rivals the next day, Brooklawn Middle School. "Hopefully we at least beat them tomorrow," one of the wrestlers said dreadfully, dragging his feet with their head down. The team arrived at the school the next day and sat quietly and focused, rather than standing up and being rowdy. Though they hoped for a victory, the team lost most of their individual matches and the final score also left them with a second devastating defeat by a significant amount of points. The match resulted with a few injuries throughout the team including, a black eye and two other head injuries. "A big part of the loss was home advantage for the opposing team," the Central coach explained. Since the match took place in Brooklawn's home gym, they had a large crowd that cheered loudly when something went in their favor. Even though they lost as a team, a few of the wrestlers who trained hard in practice and wanted to get better won their individual matches. After loosing their first two matches the team claims they are "devoted to start training harder" so they could potentially earn more wins in the future. The team could have potentially started off the season stronger if they had been serious about getting better.