The night before a match, Zeke Stroupe has trouble sleeping because of the anticipation. He has spent hours training to perfect his wrestling moves and countless other hours running to build up his endurance so he can last through physically exhausting two-minute periods. Not to mention the self-control he employs to maintain a strict diet. When Stroupe wakes up the next day, he tries to ease the nervousness. At lunch he jumps rope and later he runs. “I run a mile before every match – even if I’m on weight – to get my blood flowing,” he said. Making weight so that they can wrestle in the lowest possible weight class is a struggle every wrestler faces. Their dedication takes them to great lengths – from spitting into bottles to restricting their diets or even running around the school in three layers of coats. At the beginning of the season, the nurse administers a hydration test to make sure that none of the wrestlers dehydrated themselves to make a low weight. Wrestlers are allowed to lose a set percentage of their original weight per week – usually about a pound – but sometimes have to lose several pounds in a day because of weight fluctuations. “The most weight I ever had to lose within 24 hours was seven pounds,” Junior Heath Nye said. Before rules prevented it, wrestlers would work out, sleep, and go to school wearing a garbage bag under their clothes to help them sweat and therefore lose weight quickly. On the day of the match against Ambridge, Senior Scott Merkel could be seen around school carrying a water bottle. But it wasn’t filled with water. Merkel, like many other wrestlers, was spitting into the container periodically to lose excess water weight. To build each other up and to help make it through an exhausting day of dieting on the day of a match, they repeatedly tell each other, “tonight is a CiCi’s night.” After a match, win or lose, the team and several fans head to CiCi’s Pizza in Cranberry to fill up on pizza after days of restricting what they eat. “At one point this season we had 27 seats taken up by the wrestlers and fans, and keep in mind only 12 wrestlers are on the team,” Stroupe said. With a record of 5-6, their perseverance proves that victory is attainable. “Wrestling is the hardest sport I play, and as a season it takes up the most of my time. But when I look back at the end of the season I realize I’m in 100 times better shape than I am during any other sports season,” Stroupe said.