RUMFORD — Wrestling has long been considered an old-school sport. But looking around The Mike Puiia Gymnasium during the Franklin Savings Bank girls wrestling tournament on Friday night, it was clear that technology has become a important tool for many teams.
As Mountain Valley coach Anthony Mazza was giving instructions on the corner of a mat, an iPad connected to a tripod was taking video of the match. Mazza is using a system called MatBoss, a wrestling statistics subscription app started by a software company out of Minneapolis in 2014. MatBoss can take footage of a match and provide live statistics, giving coaches the ability to make notes and give pointers to their grapplers.
MatBoss works with TrackWrestling, a digital and livestream company that manages live online brackets of wrestling tournaments.
“Me and my co-coach actually went to a National Wrestling Coaches Association convention and met the guy who developed this,” said Mazza, who is in his second season leading the Falcons. “For years, we had to do everything by book. Now, everything is on TrackWrestling, so all (stats) need to be entered to (TrackWrestling). You realize that with 47 matches in a night, you have to enter all that info and it takes a lot of time.
“This new technology, you video (the match), and it scores (the match) right on it. It’s all linked to (TrackWrestling) and (FloWrestling). At the end, I make sure all my girls scored everything correctly, (and) I can fix (mistakes). At the end, all I have to do is hit upload and (all the information) goes to Track. Takes me 30 seconds instead of 30 minutes.”
Mazza is far from the only coach to use the technology. Thornton Academy/Biddeford head coach Anthony Cincotta is also a fan of the app.
“It’s something we use as a good coaching tool, making sure people can watch their matches and learn from it,” said Cincotta, who is in his fifth year leading the program. “We use it with filming practice, filming all the matches, making sure they have access through MatBoss, making sure they can watch and learn from how they’re doing things.”
Cincotta’s wrestlers also have access to the app, and he can send coaching notes along with footage of their matches. Ella Constantine, a first-year wrestler, has appreciated improving through visual technology.
“I think it’s good, I can understand what actually happened during my matches afterwards,” Constantine said. “I can really see what (went well and what didn’t) during my matches.”
MatBoss isn’t the only technology being used in Maine high school wrestling. FloWrestling has been used in recent years to track tournaments, replacing the traditional system of paper brackets. Teams and fans can track tournaments online, as opposed to waiting for results to be posted at a later time.
MatBoss and TrackWrestling is similar to Hudl, which has been used by Maine high school teams in multiple sports, even wrestling, in recent years.
“Mt. Blue has Hudl, and we used it last year,” said Mt. Blue coach Mike Hansen. “It’s just like in a football game, you can use the video, go back to the wrestling room and see where you went wrong in a match, make improvements. It adds another analytical step. You see in football all the time, they have film days.
“Everyone is there mat side with their phones, it’s a good opportunity to video, go back to the wrestling room and say, ‘See, you need to shoot like this. You can fix that by doing this.’ It’s been nice to have video. We’ve used it (at out-of-state tournaments), but it’s nice that it’s catching on in Maine, too.”
Brooklynn Webber is one of Hansen’s top returners for the Mt. Blue girls. A girls state champion, Webber has been using video to improve her mat work for years.
“Just being to able to connect with what you see on video to what your coach is telling you (you’re doing) wrong, to actually visually see that, it’s like connecting the dots,” said Webber, a senior. “It makes it so much easier. A lot of ways to learn moves in wrestling, it can’t just be told.”
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