Although the matches went under two minutes, the tournament felt anything but short.

“That’s the thing about wrestling, it can end very quickly, at any time,” Rosefigura said. “It only takes a second to get a person to his back and two seconds to pin them.”

On Jan. 7 in the main gym, MVHS hosted the first dual meet of the season against Palo Alto High School. MVHS won 55-21, with a total of four forfeits from PAHS.

Coach Ian Bork describes the team’s style as aggressive. They incorporated a lot of hand fighting to set up a good angle to attack the opponent. Their game strategy is to attack first, being proactive rather than being reactive.

“We’re starting to gain an identity as a team in terms of what our style is,” Bork said. “I was really happy with the effort tonight.”

A few wrestlers had standout performances. Senior James Migdal was moved up two weight classes; he is about 185 pounds while his opponent is 220. Migdal won the match by being aggressive from the start and attacking before his opponent did. According to him, he had to wrestle up his weight class once, which was the hardest match he had and went all three periods. He found the match on Jan. 7 a lot more fun, although wrestling 40 pounds up still hurts a lot for him. No matter how long he has been wrestling, Migdal finds that he always have something new to work on.

“I have been doing the sport for seven years now,” Migdal said. “I’m still learning new moves, still getting better, still doing better at tournaments. I’m happy to see I’m going up.”

Senior Austin Wu and Migdal are two of the top finalists in the league. Assistant coach Max Rosefigura was impressed with Wu because he went on pursuit of the leg attack, which was not his most natural strength. His match also ended relatively quickly, in 35 seconds.

“It happened at a good time,” Rosefigura said. “He went out on after a couple of forfeits, so he jumped out on the score really hard”

Another strong wrestler is freshman Satoshi Ueda, a national champion in judo with a lot of experience on the mat and in the wrestling club. He ended the dual by pinning his opponent in the first period with a throw to his opponent’s back.

“He’s a pretty mature freshman,” Bork said. “He finished the dual on a good note for us, so we’re happy with that.”

Bork wants the team to improve on hand control, get more aggressive and keep on the path of success.

“I think the guys had a lot of fun,” Bork said. “It’s always fun to wrestle at home. Good leadership, good technique, good effort.”