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Wrestling
Woodstock Academy's Daniel Ntamwemezi wrestles Evan Highley of East Lyme in the consolation quarterfinal. Courtesy photo.

When Daniel Ntamwemezi came to The Woodstock Academy from the Ukraine late in the summer, he wanted to participate in athletics.
He just didn’t know what sport.
So this past fall, he tried running cross-country.
The dorm student then had to figure out what he was going to do in the winter.
It was a choice between indoor track and wrestling.
“I like to wrestle. It was a good choice,” Ntamwemezi said with a smile.
Feb. 10 Ntamwemezi placed fifth in the 220-pound division at the Eastern Connecticut Conference championship wrestling tournament at Fitch High School in Groton.
“He wrestled as well as he could have in the tournament,” said Woodstock Academy coach Wes Jenkins.
Kellen Horst also placed in the tournament.
The freshman finished sixth in the 106-pound weight class.
Ntamwemezi was not completely foreign to the sport.
“I wrestled for a couple of months when I was a kid, about eight or nine-years-old. I don’t remember much about it,” Ntamwemezi said. “We didn’t use the headgear in the Ukraine. We just wrestled. There were some different rules, too.”
But he, like the rest of a young Centaur wrestling team, grew during the season.
Evidence of that growth was seen in the consolation quarterfinal.
“I really wanted to see (Ntamwemezi) against Killingly’s 220 (Rene Bernier) which he didn’t see in the very beginning match of the season,” Jenkins said.
It went about how Jenkins anticipated.
The two finished in a 1-1 tie in regulation.
In the second overtime, things went awry.
“I didn’t even know a double technical violation existed and I’ve been doing this for 11 years. I never have seen a double hand lock. Usually when the hands are locked, (the official) blows the whistle, they stop, and reset. It prevents a double jeopardy scenario. But because it was overtime, (the official) didn’t want to blow the whistle, he allowed it to continue because (Ntamwemezi) separated (his hands), but then he locked again and it put him at a two-point deficit,” Jenkins said.
Jenkins felt like Ntamwemezi could have won the quarterfinal because in the third overtime, he would have been on bottom and he was able to get up against Bernier throughout the match.
He settled for the 3-2 overtime loss.
Ntamwemezi tossed aside the disappointment and carried on, winning the fifth-place match, 5-1, over Ben Grottole of Bacon Academy.
“He handled that one well. He wrestled tough, he wrestled smart (Saturday), nothing stupid. Sometimes, he gets funky and puts himself in weird positions but he was smart and stayed behind,” Jenkins said.
“I didn’t do any stupid things, saw the opportunity and did my best. I’m excited,” Ntamwemezi said of his finish.
Horst wasn’t all that happy after he lost to Rylan Grant of Bacon Academy in the fifth-place bout, 14-5.
“I think it’s great. He wrestled a kid who either pinned or beat him pretty badly previously so it was a much closer match, just some critical mistakes. It’s not the end of the world. He will be an awesome wrestler,” Jenkins said.
The two were the highlights of the weekend event for the Centaurs.
Jenkins could only shake his head when he thought about the cases of flu that ravaged his team and a concussion suffered by Tyler Mathieu in the consolation quarterfinals.
“We’ve been hit with wave after wave of sickness. It seems like (wrestlers) come back and get other wrestlers sick who go out and come back and then they get sick again. It’s an endless cycle. I, myself, am sick right now, I just hope it’s not the flu,” Jenkins said. “We’re plague-ridden.”
Jenkins said, overall, it has been a good year.
“The coaches last year laid the ground work for a building season and I came in and took it to the next level with the help of (assistant coach) Brandon (Thuotte) and the support of the school,” Jenkins said.
The highlight being the Jacob Bowen Invitational tournament on Feb. 3 which he considered to be a huge success.
“It’s one of those sports where you don’t need the big, beautiful wrestling room. You’re OK with the dingy. It can be used, whatever, you don’t care. You get the hand-me-downs, the last to get uniforms so whenever you have something that you can take a lot of pride in and the whole community together behind it, that’s definitely something that made me aware of the spirit of the school.
“The building that we have done this year makes me hopeful that next year will be even better. Some of our losses were just bad luck. That’s cyclical. Sometimes things fall in your favor, sometimes they don’t. Recruitment will be a big thing between now and next year especially with a rising class of seniors among my group, seven will be seniors next year,” Jenkins added.
Marc Allard
Sports Information Director

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