The Two Rivers wrestling team has been working hard in practice in order to prepare for the season.
We spoke with the Men’s head coach, Scott Peltier, who has been coaching since 2004 and the Women’s head coach, Neysa Bianchi, who is the current director of women’s wrestling for the Wisconsin Wrestling Federation.
The Two Rivers team has been working together since the beginning of November, however, Coach Peltier explained that many of the boys on the team played football together this last season as they took their shot at a state title.
“We got a good group in here. They all support each other,” he tells Seehafer News. “A lot of them (are) coming from the success in football. They got a good base built, and they’ve got a good camaraderie, and they’re all in here to lift each other up there, and really no negativity in the room.”
Coach Bianchi added that both the girls and the boys enjoy being at the tournaments together to cheer each other on.
Coach Bianchi went on to express the importance of nutrition, despite extreme measures taken to lose weight that can be seen often in wrestlers.
“As the coach of women, I am against weight cutting,” she said bluntly. “It’s important for women’s bodies to go through the process that it needs to. Women have a hard time with stress fractures if they don’t have good nutrition.”
With the wrestling season being so long, stretching close to 4 months when on the road to state, keeping wrestlers motivated can be difficult.
Peltier has taken measures to be sure that Two Rivers wrestlers are at their best throughout the entire season.
“I’m not one to push heavy weight cutting,” he said. “I think that helps a lot, where the kids can stay at their natural weights, be happy, healthy and be able to go home and eat dinner at night.”
He also told us they made a policy change over the past couple years.
“We’ve kind of stopped wrestling over Christmas break,” he explained. “We don’t have any big tournaments between the middle of December to the beginning of January. (We) give the kids a week off over Christmas just unwind, relax, and heal bodies.”
The first boys varsity tournament is scheduled for today (December 2nd) at Watertown High School, and the girls will have their first girls-only tournament on December 8th.
