Hopkins wrestling ended its regular season on Saturday with home duals against Centennial Conference rivals Muhlenberg and Ursinus Colleges. The Blue Jays split the record in these matchups, with a 38-3 victory against Muhlenberg followed by a 36-6 loss to Ursinus.
In the same event, Hopkins fell to Merchant Marine with another 36-6 deficit. These matches brought the Jays’ final regular-season record to 3-6, with a 3-5 record against Centennial Conference teams.
In their victory against Muhlenberg, the team demonstrated a commanding effort, especially in creating scoring opportunities.
“I think that we did a good job wrestling on all parts of the mat,” junior Alex McLaughlin said. “Sometimes it is easy to let up a little bit on the edges, but your opponent does that too, making it a great scoring opportunity.”
McLaughlin was a major factor in the Jays’ win, providing a bonus point-win and an individual 19-1 victory against Muhlenberg.
“I think that I did alright. I need to be more careful about putting myself in danger on the mat though. I felt pretty good on my feet,” McLaughlin said.
The Ursinus loss, while exposing obvious room for improvement in some aspects of the team’s play, was still highlighted by some excellent Hopkins performances. Perhaps most notable was a perfect 3-0 day for freshman Isaac Morales.
“[This performance was] impressive for anybody, given the quality of our opponents, but even more impressive since he is a freshman. Expect big things from him and the other freshmen in years to come,” McLaughlin said.
Drawing from the loss, the Hopkins team is able to point out what must be improved heading into the postseason. As in the victory against Muhlenberg, Hopkins was able to generate scoring opportunities efficiently against Ursinus. However, they then expressed difficulties in converting these opportunities.
“I think we need to work on finishing our shots. We are getting in on them just fine but we need to work on capitalizing on scoring opportunities,” McLaughlin said.
The Hopkins team will now be practicing and preparing for next week’s Conference Championships in which they hope to see success.
“I think that we would like to see a couple champions this year,” McLaughlin said.
However, Hopkins faces several formidable opponents within their conference, so this goal, while attainable, will not come easily.
“Stevens is probably the top team in the Conference on paper... We’ll need to take everything one step at a time,” McLaughlin said. “Focus on the match at hand and not the ones in the future or the past.”
To fulfill these aspirations, the team will be working on the improvable aspects of their performance while also taking care of themselves during training.
“We are focusing on making improvements on the little things in the room,” McLaughlin said. “We are also staying focused outside of the room — eating right and lifting when we can [sic].”
This includes what they learned in Saturday’s matches against Muhlenberg and Ursinus. Most likely, this means working to continue creating scoring opportunities while finding ways to get more points off.
“I think overall we wrestled pretty well. There is obviously still room to improve, but we have a week before Conferences and three before Regionals so that should be plenty of time,” McLaughlin said.
The Centennial Conference Championships will be hosted by McDaniel College on next Sunday.
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