Lakeland boys varsity wrestling 2019 season was an good one – facing ups-and-downs, but ending with their heads held high and ready to take on 2020.

On this season, junior Kevin Lacouture said, “The 18-19 wrestling season was one of the best seasons I have ever taken a part of. We had a double digit win season with only a few losses as a team. All of these losses were against solid, group four schools.”

Senior Adonai Thompson agreed with Lacouture’s words, saying that no matter the outcome of a match, the team came “through at the end as a team and dominated.” Thompson was also proud to report he made one of his season goals – to be the last wrestler on the team to keep wrestling; he made it deep into the regional tournament.

Although the team didn’t meet their goal of making it to states, the overall tone of the season was positive, acknowledging the hard work of each of the players.

Lacouture said they are going to take the lessons learned from this season and turn it into success for the next one.  “We have missed the team tournament every year I have been at Lakeland. Next year our main goals are exactly the same [to make regionals, place in counties, and take part in states], but we hope we get a different schedule. This year we missed tons of dual matches against easy schools. This should allow us to finally make the team tournament. Another goal is to break the school record for team wins…. As other schools lost a bulk of their team when their seniors left, we only lost one senior starter. This should allow us to be very competitive next year and do something special.”  

Every one on the team played an essential role throughout the season and will take that drive and determination to next year.