Pirates Pin and Plunder Eagles

After coming off an earlier win in the week of 31-22 over Herricks, the Mepham Pirates wrestling team is looking good at the top of the Conference 2B standings. Last night's match-up saw more of the same against the Valley Stream Central Eagles.

From the beginning of the contest it looked like a sports highlight reel for the Pirates - win after win, pin after pin. All that was missing was some background music, I went with "You're The Best" by 1980s recording artist Joe Esposito as featured in "The Karate Kid." Before you got a chance to look up at the scoreboard, six matches were in the book all wins for the Pirates and only one of which went the distance.

Confidence was apparent the entire time and it showed as the team huddled up before each contest with a group war cry to pump up their next team member. Coach Rich Anderson was confident in his team from the beginning of the contest.

"We built a strong structure, through hard work and repetition," he said. "This team has all the ingredient to win, the most important being determination."

And determined they were, with impressive wins coming from Kyle Schere by pin in 1:27, Jeff Anderson in 1:31 and Charlie Martin in 2:57. Gary Dubovick showed incredible resilience and determination in 5:15. Not one team member saw the ceiling for Mepham on this night.

"The team preformed well because they were prepared, we expected a good performance," the coach added.

The entire team, although confident and dominate, showed incredible amounts of sportsmanship, not celebrating their own individual victory like we see so many professional athletes today, but rather ending each match with a hand shake and a raised arm. In a contest as uneven as this it's always good to see proper sports etiquette.  

When the Pirates finished up the night they improved their record to 3-0-1 atop the standings. Look for the garnet and gray to hit the road next week on January 14, when they grapple Great Neck South and Jan. 15, against Jericho.