Five Rhody wrestlers heading for Senior Nationals
Led by the Rhode Island and New England champion Shawn Giblin of Cranston West, a contingent of five wrestlers will spend this weekend at Virginia Beach, Va., competing in the 20th Annual National High School Coaches Association High School Senior Nationals Wrestling Championship.
The event is open to wrestlers who finished first or second in their state championships at some point in their career.
Giblin is a four-time Rhode Island champion, the last two at 135 pounds. He won at 112 pounds as a freshman and 125 as a sophomore.
Joining him will be Cranston West teammate Nick O'Connell, the Rhode Island champion and New England runner-up at 130 pounds; Ethan Farrell of Narragansett, the Rhode Island champion at 145 pounds; Alex Hayek of East Greenwich, the Rhode Island runner-up and New England champion at 130, and Connor Nelson of South Kingstown, the Rhode Island runner-up at 171.
Weigh-in is scheduled for Thursday afternoon. Competition is set to begin Friday morning and resume Saturday morning. The finals are scheduled for Sunday. The top eight finishers in each weight class will return home as High School Senioir All-Americas.
The 2008 tournament attracted 2,953 competitors, 20 of them four-time state champions.
Posted by Mike Szostak 
at 2:35 PM | Permalink
| Comments (2)
To the best of my knowledge, only one RI HS Wrestler has competed in this event and earned All-American honors. In 1995 when I was the Coach @ Central HS, a young man named Marty Walton had a very incredible season as a State & NE Champ and earned all-american honors when this event was held at Duquesne Univ. in Pittsburgh. He was one of two RI wrestlers to go that year. He showed that RI kids can compete with the "big boys" in the wrestling hot beds of PA,OH & NJ. Since leaving HS wrestling to coach at the college level, I have been following this event to see how our boys are doing and I am often disappointed to see that only a very few acually make the trip and compete. I'm thrilled to see that we are well represented. I would like to wish our Nat'l team the best of luck and thank the coaches, parents and anyone else who made it posible for these elite wrestlers to make the trip and show what they can do. Good Luck!
Rick Brtel
Head Wrestling Coach
UConn
I wish i coulda Gone. probly would of got wrescked but it would have been sick