Wrestlers prepare for tough winter overseas competitions
While most of us were home with our families and friends over the holidays attending various Christmas and New Years’ parties and packing in the calories and beverages, the NYAC wrestling team was busy preparing themselves for a string of world class tournaments to be held in Sweden, Russia, Ukraine, Hungary, Turkey, Bulgaria, Mongolia and Cuba in January, February and March. In order to be the best you have to compete and train with the best and that’s exactly what our top athletes will be doing. The schedule is brutal as the athlete’s goal is to attend two or more overseas camps and tournaments than head back to their US based training centers to get ready for the US Nationals (April 19-21) and World team trials (June 21-22). To win a spot on the US National team in wrestling has become a full time job. Our wrestlers who are truly committed to making the next Olympic team and winning a medal understand the time and energy they must put in to achieve their goal and the NYAC is committed to help them do this. Funding for these activities is not an easy task either but is made possible by splitting up the costs between USA Wrestling; the NYAC; and the athletes themselves. Between women’s and men’s freestyle and men’s Greco roman teams we will have 12 to 15 of our top athletes competing abroad. We will keep you posted as to how they perform as the winter season progresses.
On December 14th and 15th several members of our team competed at the Minnesota Storm Holiday Cup in Rochester, Mn. All of them did very well as 11 of the 13 who competed ended up placing in their weight class. Our standout wrestler however was Kendrick Sanders, who won the 66kg Greco roman division and was voted the tournaments outstanding wrestler. Kendrick was coming off a shoulder injury in November and apparently that problem is now gone as he went 3 and 0 and defeated Vaughn Perkins in the finals. Perkins had just won the NYAC International championships a few weeks earlier. Kendrick was also named Wrestler of the Week by TheMat.com for his achievement. Thank you all again for supporting wrestling and all of the NYAC teams, without your help none of our athletes would be able to achieve their goals.
NYAC Wrestling Committee
NYAC International Wrestling Championships - November 9th - 11th, 2012
Women's Freestyle
51kg Haley Augella, 2nd
55kg; Carlene Sluberski, 2nd
Katherine Fulp-Allen, 5th
72kg; Adeline Gray, 2nd
Men's Greco Roman
55kg; Max Nowry, 2nd
Dmitry Rabchinsky, 3rd
66kg; Ben Sanchez, 3rd
74kg; Tanner andrews, 4th
96kg; Marcus Finau, 2nd
120kg; Robbie Smith, 1st
Men's Freestyle
55kg; Angel Escobedo, 4th
60kg; Jimmy Kennedy, 1st
Reece Humphrey, 2nd
66kg; Adam Hall, 2nd
74kg; Bersod Ahdurakmodov, 4th
For information about our program please contact:
Dave Foxen, NYAC Wrestling Chairman, Lfoxen@verizon.net