Wrestling team struggles due to its limited number of athletes

New wrestling coach will implement different philosophy to account for smaller team

As Palo Alto High School’s boys wrestling team begins its season, the team is looking to recruit more members after several members either left for college or quit. Despite this, the team still hopes to do well this season.
“We’re trying to build up the program because we’re pretty much starting from scratch,” sophomore Seth Goyle said. “We have a lot of freshman because a lot of people left.”
Coach Braumon Creighton says that the team would love to have a full line-up.
“We would love to have 14 members on junior varsity and 14 on varsity,” Creighton said. “There are 14 weight classes so 14-28 kids would be the number to have.”
Assistant Coach Brewer says the team will focus on individual scores instead of the team score due to a low number of wrestlers this season.
“At this point with what we have, my hopes are that we will do well as far as individuals,”  Brewer said. “The team score is gonna be tough because we don’t have sufficient numbers to fill out all the weight classes so we have to change our philosophy a little bit and develop individually.”
Despite the low number of wrestlers this year, Brewer states that he and his team still have high hopes for the season.
“We got some very good individual wrestlers who have high expectations [for the season],” Brewer said. “They’re all state placers so that’s what they’re going to be shooting for this season.”
Creighton aims to focus on the performance and effort of wrestlers individually and as a team throughout this upcoming season.
“It’s really not about winning or the outcome, it’s more about the performance,” Coach Creighton said. “Every year we want to put our best foot forward.”