On Saturday, Feb. 2, the JV wrestling team traveled out to Warrenton High School for the GAC tournament. GACs are the biggest local tournament the wrestlers face before going to Districts. In the end, North came out with two third-place medalists, sophomores AJ Lozada and Bo Nixon.

“Overall, I thought the tournament was going to be easy, since I have been wrestling Varsity all year,” Lozada said.

Lozada was placed in the heavyweight bracket with eight other wrestlers. AJ won his first two matches before losing in the semi-finals. The loss was a shock to him.

“Losing that match was very discouraging,” Lozada said. “I guess I underestimated my competition and dropped the ball.”

Many JV wrestlers had high hopes to get a medal, but this year had a different turnout.

“I noticed that there were a lot of Varsity wrestlers being brought down from other high schools,” 126-pound wrestler Zac Fletcher said. “It was surprisingly harder this year.”

Fletcher wrestled in a 16-man, double elimination bracket. Everyone is placed in the winners bracket until they lose, then they are placed in the losers bracket until their second loss. He lost in the first match to an opponent he wrestled earlier this year, but finished seventh out of 16 wrestlers.

“I was disappointed in myself because I knew I could beat him,” Fletcher said.

There is only one more week of practice until Districts and the team has high hopes to finish out the year strong.

“I hope our team has a good week of practice so we are all prepared and concentrated for the challenge that is ahead of us,” Lozada said.