The Susky boys wrestling team is working hard to improve skills through weight training and live wrestling in order to face their division rivals.

Head coach Joel Stoneberg sees coaching as a way to help kids better themselves.

“We’ll be right there in the hunt for division champs,” Stoneberg said. “We don’t really goof off in the ring. It’s a couple hours of hard work every night, but it’ll pay off.”

Senior wrestler Brady Parks feels that wrestling is a grueling sport, not only physically, but mentally.

“Being able to carry out everything we learned and the skills and the muscle memory is really, really what we’re looking for in a match,” Parks said.

The drills prepare them for the challenge with their live wrestling being their most grueling drill. With up to 20 minutes of consecutive wrestling matches, wrestlers compete against one another to prepare for what an actual match would look like.

“15 straight minutes of live wrestling…was really hard, but I think that’s what our team needs to be able to move forward and really become the great wrestlers we have the potential to be,” Parks said.The practices overall are difficult, but it can bring improvement to students. Sophomore wrestler Trevor Calp feels that the difficulty of practice is what best prepares the team.

…It’s as hard as you make it,” Calp said. “You know, you push yourself farther the harder the practice is. You don’t push yourself as hard the easier the practice is.”

With the new season quickly approaching, the wrestlers are planning to work hard and build up their skills. While there are teams in wrestling, it is also an individual sport. The match is based on a one-on-one system where two wrestlers face off on a mat under the spotlight. While scores are tallied as a team, there is no true team wrestling.

“But wrestling, as much as its team, has an equal individual side to it. When you’re out on the mat, it’s one-on-one,” Stoneberg says.

Assistant coach Brad Heilman believes that wrestling teaches students about themselves and gives them many life lessons.

“The most physically talented people aren’t always the best wrestlers,” Heilman said. “A lot of it’s what happens between the years, what they realize, what they can do to somebody else and believe in themselves.”

The team has been very successful in the past, being in the top three teams of their division.

“Last year, we were 6-1 in the division,” Stoneberg said. “We tend to beat schools similar in size to us, but when we face bigger schools, we’re usually outgunned.”

The teams they go against are mostly based in York county. Our team is main rivals with Kennard-Dale High School and Eastern York High.

Our team is most worried about going against Eastern High

“It’ll be Eastern;they’re the only team in the division to beat us last year,” Stoneberg says. They will play Eastern York HS on Jan. 13