As a new season of wrestling arrives, the team has six returners and six new joining members.  Martial Arts student Jocelyn Price is one enthusiastic new member to hit the wrestling mat. “I joined because I do Taekwondo and I thought I would be a good pair with it, for self-defense reasons. This is my first year, and I think the hardest part is the training, the wrestling not so much,” Price said.

In fact, one student has a coach for as teacher, and he convinced her to join wrestling. “The coaches are great, and I have one of them as a teacher, so I knew him before this. It’s one of the reasons I joined because he’s such a great coach and I like him. Even if the coaches are strict, it’s good to an extent,” Price said

The wrestling team includes a diversity of members, such as other sports players. Ava Thomas, previously a soccer player, has also joined wrestling. “When I was in the soccer team the other goalkeeper, Parker (Lastala), was talking a lot about wrestling and wanted me to join her,” Thomas said. “The conditioning had to be the hardest part of the beginning of the season, as this is my first year doing wrestling. You have to be in really good shape to do wrestling, so it’s a lot of working out, lifting weights, and running.”

A longtime wrestler, Karianne Baldwin, has been on the team all four years of her high school career “I started because my dad inspired me to start wrestling. This is my fifth year of wrestling. Learning all the rules and moves of wrestling had to be the hardest. We have a lot more girls on the team than I think we’ve ever had, so as long as it keeps growing it’s cool. I do wrestling outside of school, so it’s both a hobby and a school sport. I really like the coaches a lot from GP. I think they’re strict when they need to be, but they can also have a lot of fun with us,” Baldwin said.