By MEL SUITER
WEEKI WACHEE, Fla. — The echo inside the gym was a welcome sound appreciated by the crowd watching young gladiators of the mat battle hard and to start the 2019 state of Florida High School wrestling season.
The athletic department at Weeki Wachee High School rolled out three wrestling mats, invited 12 teams and one of those teams was Springstead High School with some of the members of the Spring Hill Wrestling Club who came to get some work done out on the mats.
For some of the members of the club it is the next step in their wrestling careers, the junior varsity level of a high school program with a tradition of an outstanding wrestling program at Springstead High School.
Springstead High School junior varsity wrestling coach Louis Kachiroubas is still watching the progress of his wrestlers not only from the program of the club but all his wrestlers now are now getting coached on how to to respect the sport.
A chance to work on the skills that they have learned, to see competition and according to Kachiroubas is the most important thing at this point of the season.
The Weeki Wachee High School Wrestling Tournament lasted for two days and what Kachiroubas likes about it is the format.
“It is a round-robin format and allows the wrestlers a chance to compete,” Kachiroubas said. “Mat time is so important and in this format of a tournament, everybody has a chance to work.”
Each team at the start of the day faces another team and gathers points, like at a duel meet and then those results are taken into consideration and they form the two pools for the teams to participate.
Both days Springstead High School found themselves in pool B and faced the competition from the same pool.
The host school Weeki Wachee High School wrestling program was strong but they did have some company.
Lecanto High Schools and Belleview showed that they were a complete team and joined the Hornets in pool A.
West Port High School and Central High School were the surprise teams of the tournament with both teams winning some close matches. For the Wolf Pack they had the most dominating girls in the tournament.
Kachiroubas said during a break in the action that his team didn’t score very many points and on Friday they did win a couple of matches but the Eagles had a lot of weight classes that they had to forfeit and the Eagles lost six points.
Against the Hornets, Springstead only won two matches because of the forfeit and lost the match with Weeki Wachee getting six pins during the match.
Kachirbous said that the real wrestling begins the weekend of December 13 and 14 a Friday and Saturday as some good wrestling teams will be invading the gym at Hernando High School including Springstead High School.
With the spirit of the season and the occasion, you can almost hear ring announcer Michael Buffer immortal words- “Let’s Get Ready to Rumble!”
