Wrestling team recruits new, young players

Charles Constantino started wrestling his freshman year of high school, after several years of training in the martial arts. The transition from judo to wrestling was difficult, but not impossible.

Coming from four years of wrestling, and placing fifth overall in a Virginia tournament, the switch from high school wrestling to college wrestling reminds him of those early years.

"It's the same way for all of the other freshmen too, coming fresh from high school into wrestling in (the college) environment," Constantino said.

This year more than two-thirds of the wrestling team are freshmen, and were recruited in an effort to bolster the team's small roster, according to the assistant wrestling coach.

"When we were cut, we lost a lot of kids, because over the summer (two years ago) nobody knew if the program was coming back," said assistant wrestling coach Alex Whitney.

During the fall semester of 2008, the wrestling team was informed of its reduced status, and "a lot of our kids, a lot of my wrestlers, when they didn't know if we'd have a program, left," Whitney said.

The coaches didn't recruit during the summer months because the future of the program was still unknown, according to Whitney.

"This year was the first year in two years that we were able to recruit after we lost all of those kids," Whitney said.

Of the 28 players on the team, 18 are freshmen. Only four of the 28 wrestlers are seniors.

"We had a really good recruiting class come in this year, a lot of potential in the players that were recruited," said senior John DaSilva, 21, a business management major from Canton, Mass.

"Our old coach, before he left, got a really good (prospect) class to come and we're lucky a lot of them still came to wrestle," DaSilva said.

For 19-year-old Charles Constantino, a freshman history and education double major from Chantilly, Va., "compared to my senior year in high school, I've got a lot more people to wrestle (and train) with."

Wrestling in college is a totally different from high school, according to Constantino.

"It's a lot like my freshman year in high school," Constantino said. "I've gotten (to wrestle in) a lot of matches, but I've lost the majority of them."

Recruiting a strong, young team was one of the coaching staff's goals over the summer, according to Whitney.

Eight seniors were graduated at the end of last year, and "six of the weight classes had seniors filling the slots, so we lost six starters from just graduation," DaSilva said.

 "It's been a big rebuilding year. The head coach and I were able to go out and recruit some good wrestlers, and it's shaping up to be a good class," Whitney said.

"We had to go out and (recruit a lot of fresh players) to fill out the team and hope that they learn quickly," DaSilva said.

Ensuring the team was properly trained was a major focus point for the coaching staff this year, according to Whitney.

According to senior criminal justice major Nick Monaco, 23, of Levittown, N.Y., training the freshmen for college level wrestling is critical to success as a team.

"Right now, the freshmen are coming along well. We're finally getting them trained on fine tuning their technique from high school," Monaco said.

According to DaSilva, "(the freshmen) have started catching on that they have to learn on the fly, and they've adapted to it really well."

"Everyone on the team has a certain move or set of moves they're good with and the coaching staff is working with us, teaching us new sets of moves," Monaco said.

Even so, having a new coach has led to all of the players, new and old, learning new tactics, and relearning old ones.

"We've learned to adapt to the things (the new coach) teaches, because his wrestling style is different from the one our old coach used," DaSilva said.

For example, Coach John Hartupee, the new head wrestling coach, comes from a background of training at the Division-I level.

"He's put us through a lot of hard training, and he's doing really well for having such a young team to work with," DaSilva said.

"As far as technique goes, (the coaching staff) has been incorporating more basic moves and strategies, which is good for me because I'm a big proponent of using the basic techniques," Whitney said.

Teaching the entire team moves and maneuvers they learned in high school, "things the even the seniors forgot," make a big difference, stated Monaco.

According to Constantino, coach Hartupee and assistant coach Whitney have been working on molding the players to rely more on ingrained moves than flashy techniques.

"The coaches are taking stuff we learned in high school, tweaking it, and making it more refined for the wrestlers," Constantino said.

"Right now, we're just getting repetition down to get the basic techniques into muscle memory, especially for the freshmen," Whitney said.

"When you're tired," Whitney said, "you're going to use what you know, and that's where the muscle memory comes in."

Additionally, injuries are a major concern for the wrestling team, and have been the cause for several key players being unable to wrestle, according to Whitney.

"For the most part, other than a couple, the team has been staying really healthy and strong this year," Whitney said.

According to Whitney, "weightlifting constantly is the key to doing well" and staying injury-free.

"We've had a few injuries this season, and a couple of us have taken a few good hits," Constantino said. "Considering we've got mostly freshmen, we've been doing pretty well."

The coaching staff and all of the players going into next season are looking forward to the next few years, according to Whitney.

"As of right now, the coaches are going out to high school tournaments to get some recruiting done for next year," Monaco said.

According to Monaco, "now, we did such a good team with recruiting this year, they can all learn and grow over the next few years and be a real dominant force."

After having participated the entire season, Constantino said "the more we work together as a team the more we'll be able to pull out the big wins in the next few years."

Working as a team and keeping a sense of family among the wrestlers will foster a strong, dominant group for future meets, according to Whitney.

"I'm confident in the freshmen right now, and we're going to do great things in the future," Whitney said.