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Overcast Uniondale resets for stretch run
No athlete likes to lose. This holds true for the Uniondale wrestling team, which came up just short of a conference title recently, losing a heartbreaker to Massapequa Jan. 12, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a learning opportunity any less.
“[Losing] is part of it, the kids know it,” coach Tim Godoy said. “I’ve always preached them, you know, it’s not what you do in the beginning of the season, it’s how we finish up, So I think we’re right where we need to be. It’s been a good season for us; we’ve had a couple of setbacks here and there, but overall the kids have gotten significantly better from the beginning of the season until now.”
Now, it’s about reflection and redirection before individual county qualifiers and the county tournament in February.
“I think we’ve done all the right things to get ready for the dueling playoffs and the qualifiers that are upcoming,” Godoy said. “Our goal is to get 15 to 16 guys into the county tournament and see where we end up. We have a few guys that are ranked, which is great, but we have a lot of guys that aren’t even on the rankings that are that are getting better each week and I think can have an opportunity to kind of showcase what they’ve learned this year.”
Godoy notes the Knights are potent at multiple weight classes - starting at 101 with Tajae Tamar and Joshua Pierre-Paul at 108, calling him exceptionally tough. Pair that with top-ranked Luis Lizama (215), and it makes for a vigorous lineup. A clear example of that lowkey, continued growth was 124-pounder Jorge Gomez, who Godoy said has been “flying under the radar a little but getting better each week.”
The faith that Godoy has in his wrestlers runs deep because it’s based in the people that they are, not just the athletes on the mat.
“I just think they have it’s got a little bit of moxie to them, they got a little bit of swagger that allowed them to kind of push through those tough matches,” Godoy said. “I always talk to them about the things in your life that define you and sometimes you gotta lean on those hard times in order to be successful moving forward. A lot of those guys get that concept and it becomes a little bit of a mantra for us because even when they may not be technically better than another wrestler, sometimes toughness just comes through and that’s all the difference in a match.”
On top of that, Godoy prides himself in the fact that the Knights are a group of go-getters on their own.
“This team is unique in the sense that they’re not really a rah-rah team; they’re intrinsically motivated, they motivate themselves,” he told the Herald. “They’ll support each other on the mat while the other guys are wrestling, but there’s not a lot of yelling.”
Uniondale heads to Mineola Feb. 3 for a qualifying tournament that includes the host Mustangs, Hewlett, Freeport, Port Washington, Roslyn and Great Neck South.
“They’re just ready to battle again,” Godoy said.
