The 2015 season is underway for the North Providence Cougars wrestling team. 2015 will be looked at as a rebuilding year for the Cougars due to the fact that they lost many seniors, including defending state champion Sebastian Dziadkiewicz. With much young talent the Cougars aim to build their program into championship contenders in Division 1-B.
In the first dual meet of the season for Cougars, they faced off against Division 1-A South Kingstown. Both teams have gone back and forth for years now and this match was no different, or at least it seemed that way. North Providence got the first 2 wins of the night and then dropped 2 to the Rebels. From there on it was all South Kingstown from that point as the Rebels managed to win the next 8 out of 10 matches and give the Cougars their first loss, 57-21.
The next match for the Cougars was against Cranston West, another Division 1-a opponent. The Cougars have soundly beat the Falcons in recent years and this was more of the same, but started off slow. Again the Cougars started off with 2 wins in the first 2 matches. The Falcons came right back though and ended up taking the next 5 out of 6 matches. Then from weights 160-285, the Cougars dominated with 6 straight wins from Dylan Rodrigues, Chris Oldrid, Nathan Moreira, Jordan Zanni, Nicolas Africo, and Evan Oliveira. Those 6 wins catapulted the Cougars past the Falcons for a 49-25 victory, first of the year.
The Cougars ended the week with a tournament, as they hosted their own tournament at NPHS and has schools from RI and Massachusetts attend. The Cougars shined in this tournament with many of the team placing and earning medals in multiple weight classes, including 106 tournament champion Ethan Young. The Cougars also narrowly beat out East Greenwich 141 points to 139, to win the tournament and take home the 1st place trophy of their own tournament.
This year for the Cougar wrestling program has a lot of potential. With a bunch of young talent on the team, this team could grow and potentially compete for the Division 1-B title this year. The Cougars next match is on January 8th at LaSalle.
By: Nathan Moreira