Wolverines wrestling team went into counties with heart, but unfortunately only one Wolverine, senior Miguel Carreno, stands to make his way to states. Carreno muscled his way through his match, and earned second overall.

Carreno strongly believes that, “If I keep practicing how I practice, and put my mind to it, I will do great.” Carreno also gave a warm message towards his teammates by saying, “Although [His wrestling teammates] may be hard-headed sometimes, You guys are my family, and I am very proud of you.”

Prior to counties, Wolverine wrestling closed out the regular season with a loss against the Clarksburg Coyotes, but came back with a win against the Seneca Valley Screamin’ Eagles 42-22 on February 6 for the last match before counties on February 19 and 20 at Gaithersburg High School.

As of their final match, they finished with a record of 2-12. While their record may not reflect it, the ‘Rines showed a tremendous amount of improvement late in the season. Even though the Wolverines fought hard in their last match of the season, they did eventually lose to the Coyotes 25-51, in spite of their hard efforts. But, the day wasn’t a total loss because they started the tournament with a victory against the Screamin’ Eagles, 42-22.

One key win for the team against Seneca Valley comes from Carreno and sophomore Clint Okoli who won both of their matches. Okoli described the match as “easy,” but said it was a good challenge for the Wolverines.

While some of the wins came as a result of forfeits from Seneca Valley, those forfeits were only a small part of the match.

The team fell to Clarksburg due to some forfeits on the Wolverine side that were out of the team’s control. The wrestling team still encourages players to perform their best despite the team’s small number of members.

Junior Favio Quintanilla said, “Our loss was unfair because we don’t have a complete team, but individually we defeated our opponents well.” Quintanilla added that the team has “been practicing and learning new moves,” which he hoped would come in handy for counties.

Agreeing with Quintanilla, sophomore Kelvin Quacoe said, “Clarksburg had a full line up in every weight class that was very experienced.” Unfortunately, this meant that Watkins Mill’s small but strong lineup was not able to compete.

Even though not everyone went to varsity counties, the junior varsity team is still got to wrestle at JV counties. Freshman Abdulkader Gaal said, “We’re not going to varsity counties but we’re still practicing to get better.”

Great season Wolverines, and good luck at states to Carreno!