Good sportsmanship is timeless. That’s why it’s worth looking back at the gesture high school wrestler Matt Strunk offered up to an opponent.
Strunk, who was a senior at Chambersburg Area Senior High School in Pennsylvania in 2016, was set to face off against Lucas Ortiz, a 152-pound wrestler and senior from Conestoga Valley. The only problem was Ortiz couldn’t take to the mat because he tore his ACL and damaged his meniscus the October before. It was a shame, too. Ortiz had a remarkable 99 career wins under his belt.
He decided to stay on the active roster just in case a team had to forfeit a match at his weight just so he could earn that 100th victory.
Many from Chambersburg knew Ortiz from freestyle wrestling teams in the off season, so they knew that win No. 100 would mean the world to him. That’s why Strunk and his team talked it over and opted to forfeit the bout so Ortiz could capture the impressive milestone before wrestling in college.
“Some of our guys know Lucas pretty well and said he’s a really good guy, so we wanted to do something for him,” Strunk told GameTimePA.com. “I told the guys that Colin (Runshaw) should go up to 160 and I’ll give up the forfeit at 152. It wasn’t a hard decision for me – he’s a senior and was stuck on 99 wins and it was the right thing to do.”
Ortiz made sure to shake hands with the entire team following the milestone as the crowd applauded his big win and the even bigger selfless move from Strunk and his teammates.
“That meant a lot to me. Not so much because it put me at 100 wins, but it just shows that they are great guys,” Ortiz said.
Hopefully there were many young athletes in the stands that night, taking notes on what it means to be an athlete of exceptional character.
