People in the bleachers watched in suspense as sophomore Adin Kahn smacked his opponent from Covenant Life School down onto the mat, scoring a point. Kahn scored another point and got the upper hand, giving him wiggle room in his 21-17 win.
The Lions competed against the Covenant Life Cougars at JDS on Jan. 14. Kahn was one of two Lions who won their matches against the Cougars.
“I realized that when I was on top I was better than him,” Kahn said. “So I just tried to stay on top and grab his legs.”
Sophomore Eitan Braun also won his match, with a final score of 7-3. The first round ended with a score of 5-2, after a minute of Braun attempting to pin his opponent. During the second round of the match, Braun was able to get his opponent onto the mat, pressing his shoulder blades to the ground for two seconds and pinning him, winning the match.
Going into the match, freshman Ben Cashon felt excited but also a little nervous as this was his first year on varsity.
“I think we’ve done really well, just like team spirit and also the new people,” Cashon said.
Even though he lost the match, he had the upper hand throughout the beginning of the round. After getting a takedown within seconds of the start of the match, he had his opponent on the ground. However, after the first round, his match went downhill when his opponent was able to get a reversal and Cashon couldn’t roll through.
Despite his loss, Cashon felt confident for his next match and said he will take his experiences from this loss and not make the same mistakes next time.
JDS won three of the matches due to forfeit because the opponent did not have a wrestler in the right weight class.
There are five middle school wrestlers on the team, although only two of them participated in the meet. The two that did compete, eighth grade students Eli Hatwell and Asher Kaplan, lost their matches after getting pinned by their opponents.
Head coach Chuck Woolery said he was ultimately proud of his team for how they wrestled in the meet, especially after a challenging first match against Washington Latin on Dec. 9.
The next time this team will compete is on the weekend of Feb. 17, when they will go to an all-Jewish wrestling tournament in N.J.
“It’s like we’re not out here to win matches, we’re here to learn,” Woolery said. “And that’s the only thing I expect from these guys.”