Even though the Mariner wrestling team has a solid dual-meet record and has posted a couple of decent tournament performances, the season hasn’t gone quite the way Marauders coach Carl Wilkins envisioned.
Wilkins hasn’t been able to field his preferred lineup for most of the season because of absences caused by ineligibility, injuries and other issues. Mariner (7-1 overall) has enough talented wrestlers for a full lineup, but a lot of them are clumped together in the same few weight classes, leaving several other spots relatively barren.
“We just haven’t been able to put out full lineups,” he said. “Many kids have had to wrestle up to cover weight classes. We’ve just been a little bit out of sync. We haven’t been able to put a lot of the kids in their best weights.”
But Wilkins knows that his team has the potential to be a good one if it can get these concerns resolved. He said his squad has relied on the performances of Jose Parra (220 pounds), Cayden Herbert (heavyweight), Levi Ellsbury (106) and Josh Giron (145) so far.
“We’ve got some pretty solid kids,” Wilkins said. “We’re not going to be league champions or anything, but we’re decent. It’s hard to know how good we can be until we get things polished up. This season has been frustrating — we’ve looked good at times and not good at other times. I’d like us to get on solid ground so that we can really compete. Then we can set (long-term) goals. It’d be great if we could get three or four (wrestlers) to state.”
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