Wrestling comes home 

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For the first time in almost 44 years, Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School (MVHRS) hosted a wrestling meet at the Pachico Gymnasium last Wednesday afternoon and secured a victory against Falmouth High School, marking a massive milestone for the revived high school program. 

Fans and families packed the gym to cheer on the Island’s wrestlers and celebrated the sport’s return to the Vineyard community last Wednesday at the first match held on the Island since 1982. 

Head Coach Jerry Kadien said after he started teaching math at MVRHS in 2020, he  worked to rebuild the program. 

“It’s wild,” Kadien said about hosting the first home match in decades. “It’s been a long hard road from the summer of 2020 until now.” 

The Vineyard wrestling team finished its second consecutive full season last year, where they won the Cape and Islands league championship despite some roster shortages. 

At the Pachico Gymnasium, the Vineyarders defeated the Falmouth High School Clippers 54-24. Despite a significant gap in the score, the matches were close, and Falmouth’s program, in its very first season, showed promising skill among its wrestlers. 

The 285-pound weight class kicked off the evening. For the Vineyard, Ian Nunes stepped onto the mat, and for Falmouth, Cooper Fisher. Nunes earned three points in takedowns against Fisher, pinning him at the 2-minute mark to win the match and ignite the already ecstatic Island crowd early in the match.  

Odin Robinson, who competed in the 138-pound weight class, took on Falmouth’s Stanislaw Pashkevich. Pashkevich was the underdog, but he went the distance with Robinson, who is one of the strongest wrestlers in the Cape and Islands league. After back-and-forth takedowns, Robinson pinned Pashkevich at the 6:28 minute mark to win the bout. 

The Vineyarders won the meet overall, with Jashua Rodrigues (144 pounds), Isaac LeFebvre (165 pounds), Tripp Arciaga (175 pounds), Zebediah Athearn (190 pounds), Simon Arbelaez (215 pounds), and Xander Laiacona (285 pounds) winning their weight classes with pins. 

“It feels great to be at home in front of the home crowd, it felt great to have Falmouth here. We are glad they made the trip over,” said Athearn after his match. “It was great to see people on the Island get excited about wrestling. A lot of people here,when you say wrestling, they think WWE. But I like to see people get excited about it and hopefully more people join up.” 

Coach Kadien said the team was stoked to have its first home meet after being on the road for every match since the program’s first full season in 2023.

“I think all their kids fought great and our kids said right back ‘Okay, here’s our real matches, we are going to get after it,’” said Kadien. 

For Kadien, it was the early matches that excited the crowd and gave the Vineyarders a leading momentum and set the tempo for the later matches.

“A couple of kids came out and executed and got the crowd pumped up early on,” said Kadien. “Robinson [is] coming off an extended break. He struggled early on with the conditioning, but he’s one of our top guys, and I saw his mindset shift over for the mental game.” 

With some gaps in both the Vineyard team and Falmouth’s weight classes, the Vineyard was forced to forfeit four weight classes, including 113 pounds, 126 pounds, 150 pounds, and 156 pounds. 

“I think they realized even though we were getting a lot of pins, we have some holes in our weightclasses,” said Kadien. “It feels like we should’ve had more, but if you’re giving up forfeits and you have those holes, you have to make sure that you’re following through and getting those wins as well. So I think those matches early on set the tempo for the later classes.” 

For Kadien, who commutes to Martha’s Vineyard every morning, it has been a lot of hard work getting the program to where it is today, but it’s all been worth it. This coming week in practice, Kadien said the team needs to get back into match condition after a long winter break. 

“You come back from the break, and you’re a little loose, and then you are back to the real thing and that can be a shock to your system. We will have a good hard practice tomorrow then we are back in Cohasset on Friday,” said Kadien.

The Vineyarders will take on Cohasset High School at the Cohasset gymnasium at 3:30 pm on Friday, Jan. 9. The Vineyard team also has one more home match scheduled for Jan. 21 at 4 pm in the Pachico Gymnasium against Sandwich High School.