Princeton Packet Athlete of the Week

Good as Goldsmith at EB tournament

By: Bob Nuse
   For a guy who had trouble even making it out to the mat, George Goldsmith had a pretty good day at the Bear Invitational wrestling tournament at East Brunswick.
   "He was as sick as a dog the whole day," said West Windsor-Plainsboro High North coach Bill Mealy. "We had to keep a bucket right next to the mat just in case we needed it during the match. But he still went out there and wrestled real well. It was a good day for him."
   Goldsmith, a senior for the Knights, won all three of his matches at the 152-pound weight class to win the championship at the highly-competitive tournament in East Brunswick. The three wins helped Goldsmith improve to 6-1 overall on the season.
   "I thought the tournament went pretty well," said Goldsmith, who was 18-5 for the Knights a year ago. "I made it through even though I was sick during the tournament and the whole weekend. It was good to go in there and do well. I think it really helped my confidence. I was a little down at the start of the season. I lost a match to a kid from Livingston when I had the lead and then he came back and pinned me."
   Goldsmith certainly bounced back nicely from that early loss against Livingston. He’s won six matches in a row since, including the three that gave him the Knights’ only individual championship at East Brunswick.
   George Goldsmith is the Princeton Packet Athlete of the Week.
   "He’s one of those kids that is just a natural," Mealy said. "He has good instincts and they serve him well. He works hard and he pays attention when we teach him new things. He’ll go out there and try new things. There are not a lot of things that he’s not willing to do, and that has helped him become a very good wrestler."
   After a solid junior season, Goldsmith came into this season hoping to do even better. And even with a loss already this season, he can sense that he’s starting to get it together as the season moves along.
   "I was hoping to go undefeated for a while to start the season," said Goldsmith who picked up another win in the Knights’ defeat of WW-P South on Wednesday. "I think it just took a while for me to get going this season. I needed to get back into it. When the season starts it always takes me a little while to get going."
   Goldsmith’s start is all the more impressive when you consider that, in addition to being sick all last week, he’s also coming back from off-season surgery.
   "I hurt my knee at the end of the year and had surgery after wrestling," Goldsmith said. "So I didn’t play baseball and I worked on getting myself ready for the wrestling season."
   "He’s done a real nice job for us," Mealy said. "He’s a leader by his actions. He doesn’t say a lot in the room, but he does things the right way and he sets a good example with the way he works. The way he approaches things he’s able to motivate the other wrestlers. He does a good job for us."
   And Goldsmith has shown he can do it even when he’s under the weather, as he was at East Brunswick. And now he’s like to close out his career with a strong final season.
   "Wrestling is my main thing," Goldsmith said. "I enjoy it a lot. It’s a stress release for me and I really like doing it. I feel like it’s the hardest sport to do. You have to put so much work into it and you feel good about yourself when you’re out there.
   "This will probably be it for me. College wrestling is so tough. I know guys who were really good wrestlers in high school and then they got to college and it was just so tough. So this will probably be the last year that I wrestle."
   And being his last year, he’ll go out and take the mat no matter how he feels. Even if the coach needs to have a bucket waiting just in case.