Episov becomes steady winner for Pirates
By: Bob Nuse
Misha Episov knows it wasn’t all that long ago that the West Windsor-Plainsboro High South wrestling team was among the elite in Mercer County.
In 2002, the Pirates captured a share of the Mercer County Tournament championship. A year later, South was second at the MCT and won the CVC Colonial Division title. Now a junior, Episov has a feeling the Pirates are on the verge of getting back to that kind of success.
"This is about what we expected as a team," Episov said after the Pirates fell to 4-6 with a 58-11 loss to Piscataway on Saturday. "We’re very young. We have mostly juniors and sophomores this year. I think next year for us will be a lot like my freshman year.
"We had a lot of experience on that team and some real good wrestlers like Vince Avery and Tim Woodhull. That team was so strong from 145 on up. In our match against Allentown, we had pins all the way from 145 up to heavyweight. I think next year we can be a team that is real strong up top like that team we had two years ago."
With only three seniors on the roster, the Pirates are using this season as one to rebuild and get ready for what they hope is a breakout season next year. And so far this year, there certainly has not been a lack of work ethic from the Pirates.
"The biggest difference for me is that I’ve been doing a lot of conditioning," said Episov, who improved to 8-2 this year with a decision win on Saturday. "I’m in much better shape than I was last year. When we wrestled Piscataway last year, I was gassed. This year I was in better condition and we got into the third period and I was still strong."
Last year, Episov went 7-6 for the Pirates. This year he has joined with Dan Fryer, Will Despines, Joe Everingham, Brian Morris, Adrien Schreifer and Andrew O’Shaughnessy to give the Pirates a solid upper half of the lineup. And once the Pirates get healthy, they should be tough to beat.
"We’ve had a lot of injuries this year, but everybody should be back for counties," Episov said. "Andrew O’Shaughnessy just got back and Adrien and (Mike) Lieberman should be back soon. We don’t have that big of a team, so when we get injuries it really hurts us.
"Most of our lower weights are pretty inexperienced. Derek DeLorenzo is a freshman. Mainak Dasgupta is a first-year wrestler. Mitch Leibowitz is a freshman. They’re all going to get better."
And despite the lopsided loss to Piscataway on Saturday, the Pirates seem to be getting better with each match.
"We’ve got a very young team this year," South coach Craig Wilson said. "We’ll take our lumps, but we’re going to improve. We a lot of sophomores like Joe Everingham and Dan Fryer who are just going to keep getting better.
"I was impressed with Will and Misha today. It’s a tough situation when you’re sitting there and watching guys lose. You know they’re trying their best and working hard, but it’s still tough. So it was nice to see those guys come out there and win the way they did against a very tough team today."
Despines and Episov each picked up wins by decision for the Pirates, while O’Shaughnessy picked up a win by pin. For Episov, most of the matches have been resulting in a win this season.
"I feel like I’ve had a pretty good season so far," the junior co-captain said. "My only two losses are to (Chris) Floyd from Lawrence and (WW-P North’s George) Goldsmith. They’re both very good and they might wind up going 145 for the county tournament."
Episov used those losses as a learning experience. Just as he hopes that the lessons he learned as a freshman can be passed on to some of the younger wrestlers currently on the Pirates.
"We learned a lot from them," Episov said of the team two years ago. "We’ve got a pretty close team now. We have team nights on Fridays. We try to do a lot of things as a team.
"And we work hard. We do so much running. We’re all in such good shape. It also helps us that we wrestle such a tough schedule. Even though we have some losses, the experience of wrestling against teams like Piscataway will help us later in the season when we have counties and the districts."
"I preach conditioning," Wilson added. "We’re at it all the time. We run distance and sprints to get into the best possible condition. We practice hard and hopefully it pays off for them in the matches."

