Rams Wrestling suffered heavy defeats to Becton, Hillsborough and West Morris in the final quad meet of the season on Saturday, Feb. 15.
Even after experiencing four prior consecutive losses, the Rams came to the quad meet feeling rejuvenated and motivated to succeed. It was on Randolph’s home mat, and the wrestlers were prepared to put it all on the line against some of the toughest teams in the region.
“Win or lose, a lot of us wrestled our hardest, as it was the last quad of the meet,” junior Vishruth Gunna said.
Hopes were high as the Rams began their first match against West Morris. However, Randolph lost the 106-lbs to 157-lbs matches, making the initial score 52-0 West Morris.
The match started looking up when freshman Manny Samaniego won the 165-lbs match via pin at 5:04 minutes in. After two more losses in the 175-lbs and 190-lbs divisions, junior Andrew Zeidman won via pin 5:43 minutes into the match. One more loss followed, bringing the final score to 70-12 West Morris.
Next up was Hillsborough, a powerhouse team. Randolph fatefully lost every match besides the 175-lbs bout where junior Tyler Davis won 15-0 with an impressive technical fall. Despite this, the final score of the match was 75-5 Hillsborough.
During the last match of the day against Becton, Randolph started strong with a pin in the 120-lbs division by senior Yash Pullamvalappil at 1:41 minutes. After a Randolph loss at 126-lbs, Gunna won the 132-lbs match via pin, at 2:47 minutes in, making the score 12-6 Randolph. Next, a forfeit at 138-lbs would lead into the 144-lbs matches between sophomore PJ Wolak and Becton wrestler Chase Christina.
After a hard-fought match, Wolak won via majority decision. In the weight classes from 150-lbs to 285-lbs, Randolph suffered more losses. Yet, 106-lbs freshman AJ Alessandra won via pin, making the final score of the match 54-22 Becton.
“This season was a little rough, and we did not do as well as we might have hoped, with losing so many of our starters from last year,” Pullamvalappil said. “We are going to take it as an opportunity for improvement and come back stronger next year.”
Despite suffering a tough loss in the final team meet of the season, the Rams are still working diligently to prepare for the after-season districts tournaments, when prospective freshman Mason Pierce and sophomore William Mihalko hope to help lead the team to success.
