The Framingham Flyers defeated the boys varsity wrestling team with a score of 60-24 on Tuesday, Jan. 24 in the Schluntz Gymnasium.

The Warriors started with a disadvantage, forfeiting three matches as a result of not having enough wrestlers across the weight classes. Even with these forfeits, head coach Brandon Bruttomesso hoped to see a stronger performance, but said this meet can help the team in other ways.

“I wish we performed a little bit better,” Bruttomesso said. “But we can use this experience to better understand what we need to work on and where the gaps are so that we can be ready for sectionals when the time comes.”

Sophomore Jack Fitzgerald said he is hopeful for the rest of the season and the coming years.

“A lot of us are new. We have one senior on the team,” Fitzgerald said. “We’ll do much better in the future since we’re all going to be coming back.”

The meet got off to an ominous start for the Warriors as they lost five out of the first six matches. However, when Fitzgerald stepped to the floor to face his opponent in the 145-pound weight class, he delivered a huge first period pin that shifted some momentum to the Warriors’ side. After Fitzgerald’s pin, junior and co-captain Jamie Evarts followed up with another pin in the second period. But after Evarts’ victory, the Warriors lost all momentum until the heavyweight match.

Junior and co-captain Gabriel Thomas is a heavyweight wrestler for the Warriors and wrestles in the 285-pound weight class. Thomas was in total control from the moment the match began and handily won. After the match, Thomas said he has seen improvement in the team throughout the entire season.

“I think it was a tough match and it tells us what we have to work on,” Thomas said. “But overall, 60 percent of the team is new, and they’ve all gotten so much better.”

Heading into Bay State Sectionals, Bruttomesso said that doing well is just a matter of connecting the dots and combining everything the team has learned.

“I always tell these guys we have all the tools in the toolbox that we need right now,” Bruttomesso said. “It’s just knowing when to use them and chaining our moves together and being a little more aggressive with our match instead of letting the other guys dictate what we’re doing.”