On Dec. 17 and 18, North Harford’s wrestling team participated in the Kent County Wrestling Tournament at Kent County High School. 

    North Harford’s wrestling team is coached by head coach Tim Ryan and assistant coaches Robby Knox and Tim Rickey. Their overall record is 3-2. Prior to the changing Covid-19 guidelines, the team was wrestling an average three matches a week, with tournaments on the weekends.  

    Junior Cruz Cespedes attended the Kent County Wrestling Tournament and won first place in the  132 pound weight class.  During his freshman year, Cespedes won second place in the tournament in the 106 pound weight class. He “enjoyed” the tournament a lot, saying it was a “good time”. 

    Though Cespedes said it was “really cool” that he won first place for his weight class this year, overall, he was “frustrated” with how the tournament went. 

    “The tournament was very poorly run. Personally, I had to wait around four hours to wrestle, and it was just annoying. There was even a period where we didn’t wrestle for almost two or three hours. I think we did alright for the people that we had, but we didn’t have that many people either,” says Cespedes. 

    Sophomore Kent Holcombe, who won second place in his 182 pound weight class, agreed with Cespedes’ thoughts on the tournament. This is Holcombe’s first year wrestling. 

    Holcombe said, “comparing it to others, the tournament was pretty bad. There were a lot of forfeits from the other teams. Some of the competitions were good, but some were pretty bad. There were some pretty good teams though. They were different from the teams in our league, so that was cool. The only teams there that we knew were Havre de Grace and Northeast.” 

    Sophomore Clay Lawrence won first place in his weight class as well. He wrestles in the 285 poundweight class, also known as “heavy weight”. Lawrence has been wrestling since he was six years old. He’s done tournaments previously with North Harford, but also done independent tournaments for his HFG club team. 

    Lawrence says, “I thought the competition was pretty good. I wrestled the same guy twice in the championship. There were a bunch of different teams there from all over the state. We’ve done tournaments in the past like this. We had a similar one at Patterson Mill High School, but that was a team duel while this was an independent tournament.”