For a first-year wrestler, getting all the way to sectionals is quite impressive. Sophomore Maddie Patrick is making a name for herself on the mat. 

After needing a change from playing basketball, Patrick discovered the wrestling team and thought she would be good at it. When she first started, she described the warm-ups and conditioning to be extremely hard; however, it wasn’t challenging to catch on. While she still forgets stuff, she’s very hard-working and has improved rapidly. Patrick said that the difference between basketball and wrestling is described by the payoff regarding the team. 

“I feel like wrestling is so much tougher of a sport, but the reward is so much greater than I would’ve gotten in basketball,” Patrick said. “With basketball, if you place at districts, it would be a team medal. If you do well at sectionals or districts, you get a medal for yourself. It felt a lot better to me, personally.”

Despite being the only girl on the team, Patrick doesn’t mind it and encourages other students to join the team next year. 

Patrick said, “I enjoy being the only girl because I feel like I’m closer to the team that way.” 

She greatly enjoys going out to dinner with her teammates after meets and how close they are.

During team practices, Patrick said that she sometimes still has trouble remembering every aspect of warming-up. To start off, she conditions by running for about 15 minutes, then moves onto drills. After, she and a partner go live, which also helps with endurance and stamina. Conditioning for Patrick can sometimes include running sprints.

Patricks said, “It kinda sounds (bad)  with all the conditioning, but we find little breaks, and those really do it for me. ” 

To end the practice, Patrick jogs for 3 minutes, then sprints for one minute. During training, interval work is often done to prepare the wrestlers for meets. 

Patrick said, “Sometimes it’s three minutes of wrestling, then thirty seconds of rest, then another three minutes. And you’re really going all out to beat your partner.” 

While going live, Patrick said she enjoys pairing up with either partner who is the same weight, or smaller boys because they’re easier to take down. 

Throughout the offseason, Patrick plans on going to camps and improving with her partners. Keeping up with her skills should be easy for such a hard worker, but everyone should be excited for next season when Maddie Patrick comes back. 

One of Patrick’s coaches, Tom Ford, said that he and Patrick have discussed her options for offseason camps. One option would be camp Valkyrie or other local freestyle camps. Then, Ford talked about an intro-to-wrestling camp possibly being held by Windsor in early April. 

When Patrick first started, she was hesitant about hurting her opponent. After getting past that barrier, she has greatly increased her skills. 

Ford said, “Maddie has improved substantially. She learned a great deal as a first year wrestler… She has a willingness to learn and try new things.”