Bolton, MA – Its around 3 o’clock and everything is tense in the upper gym of the Nashoba Regional High School. Nashoba’s Steven Trant, a first year freshman wrestler, takes to the mat for the 106 pound weight class. He knows that everything is on the line – especially a chance to win for Frankie DeMeo, former Nashoba wrestler who passed away in 2008.

Nashoba holds a close lead over Central Catholic in the final match of the day. If Trant wins, Nashoba has secured the victory and the opposing team has no way of making up the lost points. If Trant loses, then the team could possibly fall. Knowing this, Trant wrestles smart and despite being down by points, he catches his opponent on his back and pins him. With two more matches left in the meet, Nashoba clinches the DeMeo Duals title for the first time in history. “[Steven] Trant was the outstanding wrestler of the day,” according to teammate Duncan Brooks.

Although no current member of the team knew Frankie personally, the wrestlers knew what the DeMeo Duals meant. It was a dual meet style tournament held at Nashoba in honor of Frankie. It has never been won by the team since the start of the tournament in 2009. “It means a lot to finally win the DeMeo’s. I didn’t know him [Frankie] personally but I knew we were wrestling for him and what happened,” said senior wrestler Issac Luke.

The wrestlers beat Milford (NH), Agawam (MA), and Dracut (MA), en route to winning their pool. There were two pools, pool A and pool B, each serving as a round robin. The winners of each pool would face each other in the finals. Central Catholic beat out Milford (MA), King Philip (MA), and East Greenwich (RI) in pool B to make the finals. This meant that Nashoba and Central Catholic would face off in a rematch from last year’s DeMeo Duals. “It felt great to beat out Central Catholic especially because we tied them last year and lost due to criteria,” explains James Kilgo.

Nashoba came close to winning the DeMeo Dual’s two years ago. In 2013, they lost in the finals to Framingham and took second. Last year, the loss to Central Catholic put them in a spot going for third in the tournament where they dropped a close match to Milford, MA. These results fueled the motivation for some of the wrestlers this past Saturday. Athletes who went undefeated for the weekend included Trant (106), Lucas Cordio (138), Ronan Ball (145), and Jacob Kallio (160).

The Nashoba wrestlers improve their seasonal dual meet record to 9-1 with a win over Monty Tech this past Wednesday. They will take to the mat this Saturday for the final in-season individual tournament at the Chelmsford Invitational. Next week, all wrestling will take place at home for the last time this season. On Wednesday 1/14 they face Tyngsboro and on Saturday 1/17 they host King Philip, Concord-Carlisle, and Hopkinton.