Over the years, the Southmoreland High School wrestling team has welcomed local teams to their Holiday Classic, but this year the Forest Hills High School wrestling team is coming from Palm Beach, Florida for the tournament, which runs Dec. 28 and 29. With most of the team driving, they will travel about 16 hours.

The Forest Hills Varsity wrestling coach, William Weiss, and the Forest Hills Athletic Director, Ron Kotouch, made the decision to come to Pennsylvania after discussing all of the competition they would have in one of the best wrestling states in the country.

“It’s an opportunity for the team to compete against high level competition,” said Weiss, “I believe coming to Southmoreland will benefit the team in many aspects.”
Weiss is excited to bring his team’s talent to Southmoreland, because most of their wrestlers have not competed out of state.

“This will give them the chance to prove what they can do against good competition,” said Weiss.

He also believes that this will be a great learning opportunity and a chance to bring the team closer together.

Weiss believes that his best weight classes will 126 with Pablo Asenjo, 182 with Jorge Loy, and 285 with Jordan Earle. These three wrestlers all rank as some of the best wrestlers in Florida and are multiple time state qualifiers.

The wrestlers from Florida are also very thrilled to be a part of the Southmoreland Holiday Classic. Both Asenjo and Loy believe that it will be fun for their team and that it will impact the team greatly.

“It will be a great experience, it’s great to get a different feel of the sport and Pennsylvania will make that happen,” said Asenjo.

Earle believes that the tournament will bring more competition and provide a larger atmosphere for them to display their skills.

“The overall experience should be fun. Pennsylvania is known for having tough wrestling” competition, said Loy, “It will be a good experience for the team being exposed to different competition. Both of the guys know that the training for this tournament will be just as intense as usual inside and outside the practice room.”

While the wrestlers have individual goals for the tournament, all of them set out with the same mindset to win and give it their all out there on the mat.

Along with the Forest Hills wrestling coach and team, the Southmoreland wrestling coach and team is also thrilled to have this competition coming from Florida. Coach Steve Santia is excited to have good competition from both in and out of state teams.

“It’s great to have teams out of state want to come in for the tournament,” said Santia. “We are always looking for good quality teams to come to have a good tournament.”

Santia imagines that it will be somewhat of a challenge not knowing what the wrestlers from Florida are bringing, because he is used to seeing their competition before meeting at a match.

“I’m not really familiar with them, so we are going to have to work on judging their strengths and weaknesses throughout the tournament,’ said Santia.

He believes that his most successful wrestlers for the tournament and the season will be Tyler Griffiths, Jaden Datz, and Ryan Mauro. Griffiths is one of the highest ranked in the state and is in the mix to win a state title within the next two years; Datz is looking to place in the state tournament; and Mauro was a state runner up in middle school.

“I’m looking for good things from anyone,” said Santia. “We only have two seniors, and we are young from there on with a lot of experience on the team.”

Datz is looking forward to having a different style of wrestling that is new and possibly better competition.

“It is going to be nice to have new competition,” said Datz. “Nice because wrestling is a sport where to get better you wrestle the best and to be the best you have to beat the best. You have to test yourself to find out how you stand.”

For the Holiday Classic, Datz wants to keep a positive mentality and believes if he doesn’t think anything less of winning he could win. He will be pushing himself even harder before this tournament, going to extra practices, practicing with his brother, and conditioning in and out of practice.

“Individually my goal is to win, and it is a tough tournament no doubt,” said Datz. “With 32 teams it’s not going to be easy, but you can’t have that type of mentality.”

Even though Ryan Mauro is a new student and wrestler at Southmoreland High School, Coach Santia believes that he could do big things for the team. Mauro thinks that having teams coming from out of state for the tournament will be a “positive experience.” He feels that it is a great learning experience and it is going to be great meeting out of state wrestlers.

“If they are going to come this far for a tournament, they are going to bring their best moves and techniques and apply them to every match they wrestle,” said Mauro. “It might be tough not knowing each other’s strengths and that will make it very competitive.”

Mauro is going to try to stay in the best shape he can be to prepare for the tournament. Then once it comes to the tournament, he is going to take it one match at a time and focus on his goals.

“My goal for the tournament is to win it,”said Mauro.” My goal for the season is to place at states and to help my team throughout the season.”

The Holiday Classic tournament will be held on December, 28-29 at Southmoreland High School.