Wrestling season reached the midway point with the Pilot Point Bearcats varsity and junior varsity teams traveling to Celina for a tournament on Jan. 9.
The event featured seven area teams—Pilot Point, Celina, Whitesboro, Gunter, Gainesville, Frisco and Melissa—competing in a round robin tournament as they all prepared for the district tournament on Jan. 29.
“I was really proud of how our guys represented Pilot Point,” said Reed Eichenberger, Pilot Point head wrestling coach. “… It was a long day, with a lot of matches against some good competition, but they competed hard, and I’m really happy with their effort.”
With each wrestler’s spot at the upcoming district tournament being determined by their individual record, the Celina tournament provided ample opportunity for seeding changes, with matches starting at 9 a.m. and continuing until 5 p.m.
The Bearcats opened the day facing off against the Melissa Cardinals before battling each of the other teams in succession over the course of the day.
Pilot Point co-captain Eli Knoblet, who earned multiple victories during the tournament, said the event was a good opportunity for some of the Bearcats’ new team members.
“We have a lot of firstyear wrestlers, so we’ve really worked on the basics, and those things really showed up today,” he said.
Pilot Point sophomore and first-year wrestler Wade Eft, who came into the event undefeated, said he’s enjoyed the process of learning the new sport.
“My older brother and my dad used to wrestle, and they wanted me to try it,” he said. “They taught me a bunch of moves to help me get started, and Coach Eichenberger helped me build on that and have a pretty good start to the season.”
Eft took his first losses of the season at the event before finding his footing and winning his final match of the day.
“I learned you can’t go for the same move too many times because a good opponent will learn to pick up on that, so it forced me to switch things up a bunch,” Eft said.
Pilot Point junior Timothy Kopsin, who also closed out the tournament with a win, spoke highly of how he and his teammates performed. “We can definitely learn from some of the mistakes we made, but overall, I felt like we did great,” he said. “We did a lot of positive things, and it felt great to hit a hip toss for the first time in a match.”
Eichenberger shared his excitement with the improvement he’s seen from the team since the start of the season in December.
“We saw some things in our early matches before Christmas break that we wanted to clean up and some new techniques we wanted to add, and seeing those things we’ve worked on in live competition today was really encouraging,” he said. “This event also allowed us to compete and have success against some of the schools that will be at our district tournament.”
The Bearcats wrestling teams were scheduled to compete at a tournament at 6 p.m. Wednesday in Argyle, followed by a tournament in Henrietta on Friday.
The results of the Argyle tournament were not available by press time.
