A sport as old as the Greek Empire and Roman Gladiators; weight lifting has been an integral part of the Woodland sports community going back to the inception of the school in 2001. Under the tutelage of Coach Chris Anderson and Tim Shea, the Hawk weightlifting team has always flourished and consistently competed for the NVL title.
The NVL weightlifting competition is usually held at Seymour hIgh school with teams from all around the league coming to compete. However, when COVID struck in 2020, it halted the competition that was supposed to take place that weekend, and the teams never got to make it up. Now, Head Coach Joe Lato has made it his mission to give the weightlifters and competition for the senior year.
“I felt we owed it to our graduating seniors to have a lifting competition because they missed out on so much,” Joe Lato said. “I also wanted the rest of the younger guys to finally have a chance to compete.”
Lato’s young weight lifting team will be composed of many underclassmen such as Will Brooks and Matt Petta and anchored by seniors Ben Brooks, Tyler Lato, Joshua Morales, and Noah Omer.
“Will and Ben Brooks are going to put up huge numbers for their ages and weights” Tyler Lato said, “and Brian Babo should hit huge PR’s throughout the competition.”
Lifting competitions are set up differently than other sports. There are three lifts that each competitor competes in: the bench press, back squat, and power clean. Lato also broke down the categories each lifter is in as well.
“The competition divides each lifter by grade in weight class. Each grade (9-12) has a 175 pound and under, 176-199 pound, and a 200+ pound weight class they can compete in.”
The points for each individual are totalled to have a winner in each lift.
Although it may seem complicated, the process of gaining access to the weight room and date was easy for Lato. The problems arose when they tried to squeeze the competition in at the end of the winter season.
“The real challenge was trying to organize it in a two week period. Seymour’s Coach Kearns has pitched in with the planning as well.”
Despite what the challenges were, the Lato’s and the Hawks are getting their first taste of lifting competition and will look to make the most of it.
