{"id":3186,"date":"2017-01-30T16:55:05","date_gmt":"2017-01-30T16:55:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/athletics\/?p=3186"},"modified":"2017-03-22T14:42:04","modified_gmt":"2017-03-22T14:42:04","slug":"hunter-adams-marches-forth-with-100th-wrestling-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/athletics\/2017\/01\/30\/hunter-adams-marches-forth-with-100th-wrestling-win\/","title":{"rendered":"Hunter Adams Marches Forth with 100th Wrestling Win"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guest Blog Post by Matthew Liebowitz<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cMarch Forth.\u201d It\u2019s the Williston Wrestling team\u2019s motto, a cheer shouted after practice, a pre-match rallying cry. It\u2019s a simple phrase, a two-word shout that has characterized senior Hunter Adams\u2019 illustrious six-year career on the mat.<\/p>\n

Adams, 18, recently racked up his 100th<\/sup> win, a feat he began tackling when he showed up at Williston in 7th<\/sup>grade with no prior wrestling experience. However, he had spent enough time around his brother, Connor, and his fellow team members to know it was a sport he wanted to pursue.<\/p>\n

\u201cI liked the guys on the team,\u201d Adams said. \u201cAnd my brother said it\u2019d be good for me. That\u2019s the big thing about wrestling, it helps you with every other sport.\u201d Adams, from Palmer, Mass., also plays football and is on the track team. He heeded his brother\u2019s advice that \u201cthe only way to get better at wrestling is to wrestle.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s exactly what he did, from his 7th<\/sup> grade year, when, as wrestling coach Matt KaneLong put it, he was \u201ca slightly smaller version of what he is now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Originally competing in the 113-lb. weight class, Adams and his team piled on a string of solid winning seasons. The personal wins for Adams, now in the 145lb. weight class, kept coming as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn other sports, size is the biggest thing,\u201d Adams said. \u201cIn wrestling it\u2019s all even, no excuses. It\u2019s on you if you win, if you lose it\u2019s on you.\u201d<\/p>\n

KaneLong, Williston\u2019s wrestling coach for the past 17 years, called Adams a \u201cwarrior,\u201d and spoke highly of his commitment to the sport and to his own personal improvement.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a great kid, he\u2019s in there working hard every day,\u201d KaneLong said. \u201cMy guys in general, we\u2019re probably the hardest working team on campus, and he\u2019s right there in the mix. He has a sense of pride in working hard and it pays off.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the team continued putting up winning seasons, so did Adams. But despite the goal of reaching his 100th<\/sup> win, Adams said receiving that specific recognition wasn\u2019t his top priority.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re younger [100 wins] seems so far away,\u201d he said. \u201cIn sophomore year I was at 50, and coach KaneLong said, \u2018you know, you\u2019re on the path.\u2019 That\u2019s when I started kind of counting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Hunter<\/a>
Hunter Adams reached 100 wins.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Now with the 100th<\/sup> win under his belt, Adams has his sights set on the future, including an upcoming Class A tournament at Williston, and next year, when he\u2019ll hit the mat as a member of the Sacred Heart University wrestling team. While he continues to confidently march forth, Adams holds a place in his heart for one particular inspiration.<\/p>\n

His biggest influence, he said, was Brian Crockett, a former Williston history teacher who also coached football and wrestling Adams\u2019 freshman year. Tragically, Crockett died at 22, before the end of the school year, from a heart problem.<\/p>\n

Adams recalled when, as a freshman, he got knocked out during the first day of the New England Wrestling Championships. \u201cHe came over and said, \u2018You can do this, you belong here. You can\u2019t give up now, you\u2019re only halfway there.\u2019 I think he\u2019s had one of the biggest impacts on me and a lot of people at this school.\u201d<\/p>\n

Visibly choked up, Adams displayed the school newspaper\u2019s announcement of Crockett\u2019s passing, which he keeps in his wallet. Crockett, Adams pointed out, went to the hospital on March 2, 2014. Two days later, March 4th, he was gone. March forth. The team motto, the chant to keep going.<\/p>\n

It holds special significance for Adams.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s always a reminder to me to keep you head up and keep pushing forward,\u201d Adams said, recalling that Crockett\u2019s funeral in New Jersey, which he attended, was not a dark, dire day but a celebration of his former coach\u2019s power and positivity.<\/p>\n

His influence is as strong now as it was three years ago. Before Adams heads to college, he plans to honor Crockett\u2019s memory by getting a tattoo of Crockett\u2019s initials over his heart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guest Blog Post by Matthew Liebowitz \u201cMarch Forth.\u201d It\u2019s the Williston Wrestling team\u2019s motto, a cheer shouted after practice, a pre-match rallying cry. It\u2019s a simple phrase, a two-word shout that has characterized senior Hunter Adams\u2019 illustrious six-year career on the mat. Adams, 18, recently racked up his 100th win, a feat he began tackling … Continue reading Hunter Adams Marches Forth with 100th Wrestling Win<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-athletics-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/athletics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3186"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/athletics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/athletics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/athletics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/athletics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3186"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/athletics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3257,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/athletics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3186\/revisions\/3257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/athletics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/athletics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/athletics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}