The lower/middle school gym was quiet Friday night, save for the rhythmic thud of wrestling mats unrolling across the hardwood. After an abbreviated practice, the two GDS wrestlers, senior Beck Holtzman and freshman Stuart Mitchell, joined head coach Grayson Shepperd, assistant coaches Chris Oster and Josh Perelman, and the maintenance team in preparing the space for competition. Together, the group hauled the mats down from the wrestling room one floor above, guiding them through the elevator and onto the gym floor. With the velcro seams hooked into place and strips of tape stretched taut along the edges, the gym floor transformed into a battleground ready for the Mid-Atlantic Conference (MAC) Individual Championships.
Missing from the lineup was sophomore Dev Narang, who had a scheduling conflict and couldn’t compete, leaving GDS with just two wrestlers in the tournament. That didn’t change the team’s focus. For Mitchell, it was a chance to test himself in his first high school postseason, while Holtzman—already a three-time MAC champion—had a shot at making school history.
Before stepping onto the mat for his opening match against Sidwell Friends School sophomore Matías Lopez-Forastier, Holtzman was relaxed, confident and direct. “For my first match, there’s no guarantees in wrestling, but this is as close as you can get,” he said. “I’m going to beat the Sidwell guy.”
Holtzman, who usually cuts down to 138 pounds for competition, chose to forgo the weight cut and wrestle at 146, keeping his training weight to ensure a rematch with his lone MAC loss from earlier in the season—Saint James junior Brodie Burdette. Unfazed by the jump in weight class, he said he felt confident in his approach. With only three wrestlers in his bracket, he knew that showdown was coming, but before that, he had business to take care of in the opening round.
During the first match, against the 146-pound Lopez-Forastier, Holtzman played with his food: Instead of going for a quick pin, Holtzman said his strategy was to prolong the match. He added that his plan was to earn seven takedowns for three points and allow Lopez-Forastier to escape each takedown, earning one point.
Holtzman executed this plan, earning a 21-6 win by a technical fault in the first period, triggered by his 15-point lead. “I wanted to go out there and just dominate and get ready for what’s going to be a tough next match,” he said after beating Lopez-Forastier.
In his second match, Holtzman faced 146-pound Brodie Burdette from Saint James for the weight class title and an all-MAC award. Holtzman had lost to Burdette earlier in the season in the finals of a tournament at Saint James.
Before the match, Holtzman acknowledged that the path to a victory wouldn’t be as straightforward as the first round. “I’m going to make it hard for this guy, though,” he added. “He’s gonna be out of breath at the end of it.”
He started the match with a takedown, which Burdette answered with an escape. Shepperd and Oster sat on the edge of their ringside seats, yelling “Set the elbow” and “Keep your legs up.” At the end of the first period, Holtzman was up 3-1.
In the second period, Burdette quickly shot at Holtzman’s legs; Holtzman dodged the attack and countered with a takedown. Holtzman took a commanding lead during the second period and began wrestling more cautiously, staying away from risky moves. Burdette showed frustration, shaking his head while moving to reset. His coaches tried to calm him. “You’re just diving at his legs; slow down and set your shots up,” Saint James coach Griffin Almany shouted from the side of the mats.
As the second period came to a close, Burdette yelled, “Do something” at Holtzman. Despite Burdette’s taunt, Holtzman stayed disciplined and held his 9-5 lead going into the third period.
Holtzman earned a quick escape to start the third period and waited out the clock as Burdette could only try to shoot at his legs. Holtzman won the match 10-5, earning a MAC individual title.
The victory was historic, making Holtzman the first GDS wrestler to win four MAC titles. “Usually, that fourth title is not so dramatic if you’ve already won the MAC three times, but it turns out this ended up being one of the more dramatic ones for him,” Shepperd said.
“Beck wrestled him at the Saint James holiday tournament,” Oster said. “We felt like Beck was the better wrestler, but he made some silly mistakes in that first match, so it was really just tightening things up and making sure he wrestled a smart match.”
“I mean, he [Burdette] is a great competitor,” Holtzman said, panting, in a post-match interview with the Bit. “I have a lot of respect for him, but, respectfully, I’m a better wrestler.”
Mitchell, the only other GDS wrestler competing, started the tournament against 138-pound Hugh Kaine from St. Andrews. The two kept each other at bay throughout the first period. The referee first warned Kaine for an illegal hold on Mitchell’s headgear and then awarded Mitchell the match’s first point after Kaine committed another illegal hold.
The two traded jabs throughout the first period. Then, as Kaine adjusted his own headgear, Mitchell shot at Kaine’s legs and took him down, eventually forcing him onto his back and earning the win by fall (a pin) to get a 1-0 start to the tournament.
“For the first period, we were in a relative stalemate. I got a point early, so I didn’t see any reason to do anything too risky because he wasn’t making any big moves,” Mitchell said. “We continued the stalemate until I saw him stand up and fix something, and then I got him.”
Mitchell later faced Matthew Seeber from The Potomac School and Liam Lunderville from Saint James. Mitchell lost to Seeber by pin and to Lunderville by technical fall.
With his 1-2 record, Mitchell earned 3rd place and a podium finish in the 138-pound weight class.
“Stuart [Mitchell] wrestled hard. He had one of the few weights that had four or more wrestlers,”
Shepard said. “He won one match, to put him in third place. Not bad for a freshman. He’s definitely got a good future ahead of him.”
“We ended up with two placers, third and first,” Oster said. “Obviously, first and first would have been the best we could do, but we’re happy we got to continue our streak of having a MAC champion each year.”
After the medal ceremonies, Holtzman, Mitchell and the coaches hauled the wrestling mats back up to the lower/middle school wrestling room with the help of parents, the maintenance team, athletic operations coordinator Mike Pierce, Athletic Director Mike Brooks and High School Principal Yom Fox, who were all in attendance.
Mitchell and Holtzman will return to the mats on Wednesday, Feb. 5, for the team MAC Championships at The Potomac School—where Holtzman is likely to face Burdette once again in a decisive third match to break their 1-1 tie this season.