Training and recruiting for the Skyline College wrestling team’s fall season is in full swing.

The wrestling team currently trains twice a week once on Mondays and once on Wednesdays. During the off season the team is working to improve mat presence, wrestling technique and strategy.

When not in the mat room, Coach James Haddon is placing added emphasis on making sure that his wrestlers are consistently performing weight training, endurance training and participating in offseason tournaments to stay on top of their game.

From a recruiting standpoint, the team is looking to add a number of wrestlers to the squad. The main objective is to bring in 40 to 50 wrestlers during this offseason according to Haddon.

As far as the 2014 Fall season is concerned it looks as if the team won’t lose many of last season’s wrestlers.

“We had a pretty big group, I anticipate most all of them will return” Haddon said.

Haddon is reaching out to high schools in order to attain quality wrestlers for next season, with a particular focus on picking up upper-weight class wrestlers.

“It’s always difficult to get upper weights because a lot of those guys play football. As far as recruiting, every year coaches are saying the same thing, we want more heavyweights.”

Students without wrestling experience are welcome to join the team, but a lengthy learning curve and high level of competition often discourages those who are interested in trying the sport for the first time. As with any sport there a number of skills an athlete would ideally have. For wrestling an athlete’s “got to have good feet good body awareness and mental toughness, with wrestling it helps to be explosive but you can’t live on it.” Haddon said.