In sports, much like in life, strong leaders that understand the challenges ahead are essential to success.
Goshen’s Wrestling Coach Jarrad Vrydaghs has found leadership from two wrestlers: team captains Greg Schaefer and Evan Weeden. The duo may only be juniors, but their years of experience in the Goshen wrestling program has prepared them to step up lead.
“Evan and Greg have been wrestling for a long time,” Coach said. “It just seemed natural that they would just be the leaders in the room. That’s why they’re the captains. A lot of the guys in the room look up to them.”
At the Mustang Duels, Schaefer and Weeden gave the team something to look up to. Greg defeated the defending DII state champion and current #1 DII wrestler in the state. Greg’s performance earned him the New York USA Wrestling award “Wrestler of the Week.” Coach Vrydaghs has never had an athlete receive an award like this in the 15 years he’s been coaching. “We’ve had guys get big wins against section champions, but no one has ever beaten a defending state champion,” Coach said.
Becoming Wrestler of the Week is something Greg says he “couldn’t have even thought of.”
“At the time, I didn’t know he was a state champ,” Greg said. “I had no idea anything would really come from the match.”
Evan, like Greg, went a perfect 10-0 at the Mustang Duels event, and says their performance is a part of a longer trend this season. “Our whole team has really improved. We do have a really young team, but we’ve all been doing a lot better,” Evan said.
Following the Mustang Duels event, Greg had a 32-4 record with the #4 ranking in Section IX. Evan emerged from the Mustang Duels at 28-6 on the season, looking to build on the success he had last year in making it to the semifinals at the section tournament.
The captains have memories of wrestling in Goshen since they were in second grade. “I never really started doing well until I won my first match in sixth grade,” Evan said. “But as soon as I won that match, I loved the feeling of it, and it just pushed me to keep going.”
The experience the two captains have competing side-by-side is what they drew from at Goshen’s recent tournament in Beacon. “He’ll place second, I’ll place third. He’ll go third, I’ll go second. At this tournament I was like; ’we just have to break the cycle’,” Greg said. “Seeing Evan place as high as he does and me being captain, I’ve got to step up my game.”
The light at the end of the tunnel for the Gladiators are the section playoffs, followed by the state tournament at MVP Arena in Albany from February 28- March 1. This year specifically, it would be special to have a Gladiator make it to states.
Each year, in a partnership with the company Dollamur, a wrestling mat is customized for an individual school and used for the New York state championship events. Following the matches, the mat is delivered to the school to become their competition mat. This year, Goshen’s mat will be used for the tournament before being delivered to the high school.
“It’s been an amazing thing for the district and our booster club to have that mat created,” Coach Vrydaghs said. “I think it’s going to be really cool that it’s even on the floor because we go to a lot of tournaments around the state. We’ve been to a lot of different sections, we’ve wrestled a lot of schools over the years. When that mat gets to Albany, there’s going to be people in that arena that know who we are.”
Both of the Gladiators captains have their eyes on the state tournament. “We just need to go out, perform, and then get to states,” Greg said.
“We really just need to qualify for states this year,” Evan said. “We’re seeded to go to states, but we just have to finish the work to actually get there.”