Wrestling team is successfully pinning down first half of season

By Myra Frederick
Sports Editor

The UNCP men's wrestling team has been working extremely hard the first half of their season, according to Head Wrestling Coach P.J. Smith and the team's stats.

About 43 young men make up this season's wrestling team and out of that number, nearly half of them (23) are freshmen. Also on the team are six sophomores, eight juniors and five seniors. Lewis Polley, Dwayne Coward, Curry Pickard, Aaron Gunning and Norlan Graves are the seniors leading the Braves this season.

These young men are the ideal leaders of any team. They don't just tell the other wrestlers how to do something, but they also show them the correct way to do it. The men help build up the Braves' team.

“They lead by example. When they do good, we do good as a team,” Smith said. Smith also said that he is expecting the seniors to have a superb season.

The Braves have had six matches thus far this half of the season. In the second half of the season, they will have eight matches, not including the NCAA regionals and nationals.

According to Smith, this year's wrestling season is going fairly well. The wrestlers have had their bumps like any other team, but they are yet doing well on the mat.

“It's going pretty good,” Smith said of the wrestling season thus far. “It could've been good; could've been bad.”
One of the bumps the wrestlers have had to encounter is injuries, but even those guys are working hard trying to get back in time for the second half of the season.

Aside from the few rough spots, the young men recently had a match at the Newport News Apprentice in Newport News, Va. following the Thanksgiving holiday. The young men left the Apprentice with a remarkable win of 39-12. The win was the Braves' first dual meet win of the season.

Sophomore Eric Payne helped set up the UNCP win by pinning his opponent Reuben Russell down early with 3:35 on the time clock. Smith also credited Polley and sophomore Adam Dedmon for warming the mat up for the Braves' outstanding win.

Smith is focusing on and hoping that at least six of the men will rank in the regionals and nationals. He hopes that at least four of them will be All-Americans and at least one of the guys will be a national champion.

Senior Aaron Gunning has almost the same mind set as his coach. “I think that we can have three national champions and at least three All-Americans,” Gunning said.

Smith said that the team is working hard and that they are trying to get their injured players, such as Curry Pickard, back into playing position.

“If we can get everything clicking, then we'll be good for next (second half) season,” Smith said.