Montville Youth Wrestlers Shine

Champions start young in the sport of wrestling.

Upon closer inspection of Bacon Academy’s and Ledyard’s battle for Eastern Connecticut Conference and Class M state title supremecy this past scholastic wrestling season, you see that almost all of their individual state champs received an early indoctrination to moves such as cross-face cradles, the fireman's carry and double leg takedowns in their respective youth programs.

The Ledyard Colonel Youth Club, Colchester Wildcats and Silverbacks of Willimantic are powerhouse youth programs that produce individual champs on a regular basis on the local, regional, state and New England level in youth wrestling. Thus, the high school programs at Ledyard; Bacon, this year’s State Open champ; and Windham, which produced four ECC individual champs, have been the beneficiaries.

The Montville Youth Wrestling Club has knocked heads with these local grappling hotbeds, plus local private clubs, and represented itself very well. Not only do 40 or so wrestlers from first to eighth grade practice twice a week from December to March at Fair Oaks School, but some advanced wrestlers benefited from intense training from the club’s dedicated staff of volunteer coaches, too. Six Montville wrestlers placed in the Connecticut Middle School State Tournament in late February and qualified for the New Englands in March.

Whether these novice, intermediate or middle school wrestlers were in it for fun or fame, most of them achieved their goals.

"The highlight of the season was having a majority, about 75 percent of kids in the program, placing between first and third in tournaments," youth coach Rob Kurasz said. "For a Park and Rec program that does it three months out of the year, it's a great club."

Kurasz, who has two sons in the program and an alumnus son, Dan, who recently finished third in the CIAC State Open 160-pound division, has help. Chris Kury, Jason Spreng and Lee Winakor also coach the squad.

Montville’s top youth wrestlers enjoyed great success at the Connecticut Youth State Championships in New Haven. In the Middle School Division, Kevin Murtha finished second in the 205 pound class, Thomas Wynosky (98 pounds) and Colin Flynn (115) each placed third in their respective divisions, and Mitchell Chaude was fifth at 175 pounds.

In the intermediate division, Ezra Spreng finished third at 65 pounds. In novice classes, Noah Caskey was fourth at 65 pounds, Dan Contino was fourth at 145, Emanuel Diaz placed fifth at 130 and Joel Morth was sixth at 74 pounds.

Contino came up big  to place third in the Novice 145 pound division in the New Englands, marking the highest finish among Montville club qualifiers.

"Placing six into the New Englands was a tremendous feat," Kurasz said. "Usually, Montville has sent one or two a year into the New Englands on a good year. This year, to have six was outstanding. We qualified as many as most clubs that charge membership fees."

Montville's youth club hopes to expand to more than a three-month season, offering training for at least half of a year. Tackling such a project would require additional fundraising as the present Montville Rec provisions allow for use of Fair Oaks School for just winter months.

"Montville has limited recreation space, and there is high demand for space at Fair Oaks," Kurasz said. "It would be nice to offer more than a three-month program, but expanding is now in a project stage."