Wrestling (0-4) opened their season against some of the most difficult competition they will face all year, traveling eight hours to George Mason University (GMU) in Fairfax, Va. for the chance to compete against four Div. I teams. In their quad meet against GMU (3-0), The Citadel Bulldogs (2-1), the Campbell University Camels (1-2), and the Bloomsburg University Huskies (3-3), the Ephs won nine individual matches but lost all four duels.
The Ephs boarded the buses bound for northern Virginia with only a few weeks of practice under their belts, according to Jamie Evarts ’28. “We’ve only been [training] for about three weeks, and then we’re just right into the fire,” he said.
The fire was roaring. “These Div. I teams, they’re scholarship programs… They get to practice with their coaching staff year round,” Zach Borzio ’27 said.
This challenge motivated the Ephs to make the long trip. “We wouldn’t want it any other way,” Borzio said. “Hard competition right off the bat [to test] ourselves in some deep waters.”
The Ephs went into the competition ready to discover areas for improvement. “When you wrestle teams that are better than you on paper, I think it exposes your weaknesses in a way that it’s not going to show when you wrestle a team that’s worse than you,” Fisher Stites ’28 said.
As the only Div. III team at the competition, the Ephs embraced their underdog status. “We’re going against four Div. I teams,” Stites said. “We’re a Div. III team. We’re not expected to win any of these. Let’s go out there. Let’s wrestle our best.”
The morning of the competition, the Ephs woke up at 5:30 a.m. for their weigh-in, for which they had been preparing all week. “We stop eating salt on Wednesdays so that the water flushes out of us during practice [and] makes it a lot easier [to make weight],” Stites said.
Once the wrestlers make weight, the show begins. “It’s always nice to have [weigh-in] out of the way, and then you can focus on wrestling, enjoying the support, supporting each other, and having a blast,” Evarts said.
The Ephs opened the day with a full taste of Div. I level difficulty, falling 45-0 to the Bulldogs. As the day went on though, the Ephs showed improvement. In their next matchup against the Camels, the Ephs put up 14 points, ultimately falling 28-14.
The Ephs then lost 30-6 against the Huskies and finished with a narrow loss to GMU by a margin of 31-23. According to Borzio, the Ephs were the only team at the quad to compete four times.
Co-captain Peter Kane ’26 and Jake Strianese ’29 each picked up a pair of wins. “Jake did really well,” Stites said. “He’s a freshman, [and] he won two matches, [which is a] crazy debut.”
In addition to the strong individual performances, Stites stressed the team’s collective effort. “Everyone contributed up and down the lineup,” he said.
These contributions did not go unnoticed by Coach Scott Honecker. “Coach said, ‘I think if a non-partisan bystander walked in the room, they wouldn’t be able to tell who the Div. III team was,’” Stites said.
Looking ahead, the Ephs remain committed to growth on all fronts. Rather than fixating on outcomes, their focus lies in steady improvement and collective progress, according to Evarts. “I’m much less occupied by specific goals in terms of placement or winning,” he said. “At Williams with Coach Honecker … the goal is always to be the absolute best version of yourself and the best you can be as a wrestler, and having that mindset has helped everyone on the team achieve far more than [we] ever could have if [we were] hyper-focused on results.”
With the difficult competition under their belt, the Ephs have put themselves in a solid position to facilitate that growth. “We’re up against it,” Borzio said. “We’re the only team that went four [duels] in a row. We’re the only team not on scholarship. We chose to do this. We’re the guys that wanted to do this, and we went and did that.”
