St. Joe’s Hosts Summer Wrestling Camp

The St. Joseph’s Collegiate Institute wrestling program hosted its 12th annual clinic from Monday, July 30th through Thursday, August 2nd. Each session of the camp was well attended with an average of sixty varsity, junior varsity, and youth wrestlers hailing from numerous area schools. Seven guest clinicians including 3x NYS champion and current North Carolina State wrestler Kellen Devlin (Amherst) and NCCC’s 2018 national champion Troy Keller (N. Tonawanda) introduced and instructed technique to the athletes who also drilled and wrestled in live situations. Six Marauder coaches and seven alumni were in attendance to assist with the camp as well. The other guest clinicians were Brandon Dallavia (Stanford Wrestling), Ryan Kromer (Lewiston-Porter, UB Wrestling), Frank Affronti (Wayne HS Wrestling, Hofstra University Wrestling), Jeff Catabrone (3x NCAA All-American, University of Michigan), and David Hockenberry (Lewiston-Porter, Binghamton University Wrestling).

“All ships rise with the tide” stated Joe’s head wrestling coach Pete Kennedy on hosting a successful summer program that is open to ‘any & all’ athletes. Kennedy is going into his 15th season as the Marauders head coach.

A few current Marauders wrestlers were in attendance to both practice and assist others.

“This is my fourth year at this camp” stated Joe’s junior standout wrestler Ben Parish. “Before I even started to go to school here I went to this camp.” Parish was 3rd at 132-pounds at the Catholic High School Athletic Association (CHSAA) State Wrestling Championships as a sophomore this past season. Parish reflected on what he learned as a younger wrestler at his first camps saying “Learning how to learn technique and write it down so when I go places I can get the most out of it too” was an important principle of he adopted. “To get better, you’ve got to wrestle the best guys. So if they’re here, I’m getting better as well.”

St. Joe’s wrestler Matt Werts has been coming to this camp for six years. “This camp helped introduce me to this program and to this school. If it weren’t for this camp, I wouldn’t be here probably.” Werts, the 2017 Msgr. Martin league 182-pound champion, is going into his senior year and understands the importance of getting offseason wrestling and helping his teammates. “Individually, helping my own partner, like even today, means we’re both getting better. We’re all getting better, we’re trying to push ourselves and one another to be the best we can.”