The Niles West Boys’ Wrestling team will be hosting their annual match against Niles North in an attempt to return the traveling trophy back to West. The ongoing rivalry between schools continues as the wrestling team tackles this match.

In previous years, the team has not had enough people in weight classes, resulting in them having to forfeit points leaving them far behind in the match. This year, the team aims to acquire more points considering each weight class has a sufficient amount of members.

“Against North, our goal is to get more team points than them,” co-captain Patrick O’Dwyer said. “We’ve lost to them two years in a row. The last couple of years, we haven’t had enough boys in the weight classes, so we had to forfeit points. That’s six points, so we’d already been at a really big deficit. This year, we have a full line-up, so we have every single weight.”

The boys are preparing by giving their full effort during practices and wrestling against each other; they hope their work this far into the season pays off.

“[I hope we compete] well because we all grind and work hard,” freshman wrestler Foahd Masad said. “[We’re preparing] by doing drills. The coaches are helping us by going live with each other.”

The team is focusing on not getting pinned down early on in their matches to ensure that they don’t fall behind from the get-go.

“I feel that we have got to work on not getting pinned at all, so they don’t take the lead early on,” senior wrestler Andrew Arnautu said. “We have to be the aggressors, and show what we are made of. Personally, I’m looking towards getting the trophy back and pinning my opponent.”

The team will be hosting their match against Niles North on Friday, Dec. 8 at 6:00 p.m. in the Wrestling Gym at Niles West. Make sure you come out and show your support.