By DANTE NELSON

As the winter season approaches, athletes at Bellefonte High School prepare for arguably the most popular sport in Central Pennsylvania — wrestling. 11 year head coach and BHS history teacher Mr. Michael Maney will lead the pack of 22 wrestlers through this upcoming 2018-2019 season. The team will also include seniors Ryan Smith, Kyle Myers and Cole Stewart along with junior Alex Coppolo as team captains.
With 7 seniors on the roster, high hopes are left for the Red Raiders in terms of how much experience this team holds. After facing a large loss of seniors after the 2016-2017 season the Raiders lost some motion, but this year they are expected to climb back to the top.
“We have a group of seniors who have been together for a good amount of time. They have played sports together. Since we were a young team last season, there were a lot of underclassmen who got varsity experience so the experience can only help them prepare and set their goals higher this season,” Mr. Maney said.

Senior Ryan Smith echos his sentiments.

“I feel that we will go farther because most of the team are returning from last year and we know what it takes to win and we have a very talented team,” Ryan Smith said.
With this being said, the Central Mountain Wrestling Program is in the target site of the Red Raiders program. In recent years the Red Raiders Varsity Wrestling program has struggled against Central Mountain, but motivation to conquer their schedule has raised expectations.
“To beat not only Central Mountain but every team we wrestle we will have to work harder day in and day out than all the other teams,” senior wrestler Logan Simpson said.
Improvement is a huge motivator in the sport of wrestling, as the individual name of the wrestler and the team as a whole thrive off of success. Luckily, this new season brings high hopes for improvement based on their work ethics on and off the mats.
  “One quality that I feel our team as a whole has is desire to get better. Whether they just started or have been wrestling for years everyone on the team comes to practice and gives it their all,” senior team manager Gretchen Little said.
Be sure to support the the team and attend the first home wrestling match in the BAHS main gymnasium against Penns Valley on January 8.

“[My] Biggest motivation would be just do it for the team,” sophomore Max Barrier said.

“We have a good team that are close so we all push each other to be better,” Max said.