New Smyrna Beach wrestling aims for balance, success with new jackets, cohesive approach
NEW SMYRNA BEACH — "Hold on," Isaac Bernard said, stopping his New Smyrna Beach Barracudas’ post-victory photoshoot Saturday. He pointed to one of his wrestlers.
“Zip up your jacket,” Bernard said. “Take your headphones off.”
Then, he returned to snapping proud-coach pictures of his smiling pupils.
The Barracudas went 7-0 during the DeLand Duals last week, claiming first place. Not only did it serve as redemption for what the Barracudas thought was a lackluster performance at their district duals Thursday, but they did it their way.
They all arrived wearing gray, team-issued jackets with the program’s logo and a medicine wheel representing balance stitched on them. They wrestled similarly to each other, often with good results. And they left the same way, wearing those jackets.
“It’s not as ragtag,” senior Sawyer Vanrider said. “Every time we go to a tournament, we all look the same. We all have the same gear. The same practice routine. We work around the same (principles) for everyone so that everyone has a baseline uniform wrestling, so the coaches all know how to coach every single one of us, because they know what we’re going to do.
“Certain special guys have a little more leeway for what they do, according to skill level.”
After placing fifth in the 182-pound weight class at the state tournament last year, Vanrider is one of those guys. He is committed to wrestle at Campbell University after he graduates from New Smyrna Beach in the spring. Last weekend, he posted a 7-0 record at 192 pounds during the DeLand event.
In the offseason, Vanrider and a few of his upperclassmen teammates, like fellow senior Aidan Sutton, hit the recruiting trails. Their strategy?
“Sometimes, I just walk down the school, go to different sports,” Vanrider said. “Like if I see an athletic-looking kid on the football team and I like them, I’ll tell him to come out and give it a try. Sometimes, I bait them into it a little bit. I’ll talk trash, get them into the room, they’ll wrestle me. Then, when you beat them, they get hooked.”
It worked for Isaiah McCloud. It worked for Vance Murray. It worked for Damien LeClair. And more.
Bernard already coached a young roster last year during his first season in charge. That’s when Sutton said he saw the program shift to being more cohesive. They finished 12th at the 2A state championships.
Now in his second year, with only three seniors, Bernard thinks this squad is even younger. It was his job to get the new talent up to speed.
“A lot of people like to fast-forward things,” Bernard said. “Me, I’m a day-to-day guy. I don’t try to make two days the same. It was slowly. Just figuring out what we wanted to do with them and what would be good for them to do. We’re progressing from that.”
He incorporated them into the Barracudas’ identity.
“We are a team,” said Bernard, who was donning a medicine wheel necklace. “But if we don’t look like a team, it’s kind of hard to function as a team. We’re working on being a team and then making each individual better as a part of our team.”
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The recruits, along with some other grapplers who wrestled in the past but are new to New Smyrna Beach’s starting lineup, already are making an impact.
Freshman Devyn Hicks was 6-0 in the 122-pound weight class last weekend. Logan Daley won six of his seven matches at 167 pounds while Kyle Nilsson put up a 7-0 record at 217. McCloud went 5-1 in the heavyweight division.
Bernard sees the improvement day-by-day, block-by-block.
“We’ll be where we want to be soon,” he said. “We just have to continue to learn, continue to grow.”
“They’re really focused on making sure we can be the best possible wrestlers we can be,” Sutton said, “and making sure, outside of the room, we’re being the best possible human beings we can be.”
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DeLand Duals team standings
New Smyrna Beach
DeLand
Ocoee
Olympia
West Port
Mainland
Apopka
Seabreeze
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: High school wrestling: 'Uniform' New Smyrna Beach wins DeLand Duals
