As junior Stevie Lupo prepares for her Friday wrestling tournament, it’s difficult to contain the feelings of anticipation for the event. After a weigh in, Lupo has an hour to eat with the rest of the team, an hour to warm up, and then it’s right into the tournaments.

Going into her 3rd year of wrestling, Lupo has been playing the sport for nearly as long as it’s been around, as the girls wrestling program is a new one at FHC.

“I saw the guys wrestling, and I thought it was cool, and they came out with girls wrestling the next year,” Lupo said. “It was really small at first, and now it’s getting bigger. This is our fourth year having a team at our school. We’re seeing more girls joining, and we’ve got a JV team.”

Even with the team growing and the program flourishing, wrestling is an immensely challenging sport. State tournaments in particular are difficult, and can be the cause of a lot of struggle.

“My hardest moment was getting fourth at GAC for the second year in a row.” Lupo said. “It was because I lost to the same girl both times. So it was like a punch in the face twice in the same tournament.” 

Through failure and success, the wrestling team stays dedicated to improving their skills. Junior Katelyn Guth has been wrestling since her freshman year and is determined to continue, even when practices get more intense.

“The practices have been really hard this late in the season,” Guth said, “but we’ve all been working really hard, so we’re excited to see it start to pay off.”