by Yuki Vachon

Image Courtesy of lehighvalleylive.com

The sport of wrestling is often considered one of the hardest and most physically/mentally challenging. It’s a sport which requires total control of the body and mind, an iron will and a drive to always push forward. No one exemplifies these qualities better than Palisades wrestler, Angelo Ziccardi.

Having already wrestled for over 5 years prior to the 2022 Season, Angelo had a general idea of what to expect that year; however, that season would also be his first wrestling at the high-school level. Despite this, he was not worried in the slightest and simply continued the way he always had, with a burning desire to win.

Unfortunately the start of the season didn’t go as planned for Angelo, having lost in the first round of the first Wrestling tournament of the season. “I wasn’t upset really… I was just a little disappointed in myself.” Angelo recalls the event. That’s why going into the official season opener the next Wednesday, Angelo had a burning desire
to requite his loss and begin his season on a high note.

A fellow Palisades wrestler, Silas Day, had this to say about Angelo’s preparations that week: “It was just like a fire lit in him, that whole week was just work, work and work harder.” During warmups before the match, Angelo did not feel nervous in the slightest but instead felt ready – he felt he had a good week of practice behind him and a good mindset in front of him.

Even though the Palmerton team was regarded as quite good, this did not deter Angelo in the slightest. Angelo’s match started with him taking the lead early on in the first round as he surprised his opponent who had slowed down, cautious of the out-of-bounds line. Following the first round, Angelo had this to say, “Even though I was tired, I knew I was going to win if I pushed through it.” In the second round, Angelo started in control of the match but the majority of the match was a stalemate on both sides as his opponent was stalling. Since Angelo was up on points and wanted to preserve the majority of his energy for the third round, he did not care much for his opponent’s stalling. Angelo said that by that point, he did not care about how it was done, he just wanted to win.

Continuing in the third round on the mindset of winning “at all costs,” Angelo decided to preserve his lead and attempt to stall out his opponent. The entire match he had been up in points and his opponent was not very well conditioned. Angelo thought this would result in an easy third round for him. For the most part it was, that is until with a mere 4 seconds left, Angelo accidentally poked his opponent in the eye resulting in his opponent getting enough points to tie the match, sending it
into overtime. Following this unfortunate accident, Angelo recalls how he felt in the moment, saying, “I was so tired I couldn’t even feel my body, I felt myself losing control every moment I stopped moving.”

So even during the short break before overtime began, Angelo kept moving, adrenaline was the only thing that fueled him. As overtime began, Angelo was hopeful he would be able to quickly take down his exhausted opponent. However, this did not wind up being the case as his opponent’s stalling continued to even greater heights. It was almost impossible for Angelo to do anything with the referee of the match not being of much help to stop this, it was up to him to push through
and simply wait for the right opportunity.

That opportunity came in the second overtime, Angelo wanted to give his opponent a taste of his own medicine. He said, “I saw how tired he was so I stalled him just like he stalled me.” His opponent was so tired by this point that he was crying every time he went out of bounds, but Angelo despite his immense fatigue was not phased. So when the third overtime started, it was a different story. Angelo quickly got in control of the match, surprising his opponent and quickly scoring with his signature move called the blast double. After that, he sealed his victory completely with an additional three point. The match which had three overtimes lasted over 22 minutes; for comparison, a normal wrestling match lasts only 6 minutes.

A fellow Palisades wrestler Marco Campos reflects on the match:
“It was definitely one of the craziest matches I’ve ever watched, by far the longest one.”
The hard work that Angelo had put in prior to the season had paid off, and he had started his season off on a high note. The grit and determination to continue and finally earn the win after so much time really showed off Angelo Ziccardi’s continuous desire to never give up. “While it was definitely the hardest match I’ve ever wrestled, it was also the most satisfying.”

Image Courtesy of lehighvalleylive.com