Eagles’ flight taking them full circle

BALTIMORE (Map, News) - Northeast’s wrestling team has come full circle.

Three years ago, the squad couldn’t field a lineup and came close to folding several times, as one of the state’s top teams in the 1990s had been reduced to one of the worst teams in Anne Arundel County.

Not anymore. The Eagles soar into Wednesday’s tri-meet at 5:30 p.m. against Chesapeake and host Old Mil a perfect 16-0 and a contender to win the county title and contend for the 4A/3A state championship — something it hasn’t won in 15 years.

“When I first came here as an assistant three years ago, we had six guys,” said Coach Mark McAlpin, who was an assistant for two years before becoming head coach last season. “Then we got 13 and then 20 and now we have 24. People are starting to get interested in wrestling at Northeast again.”

But to get back to the top, McAlpin looked to the team’s rich past by convincing Al Kohlhafer, the school’s legendary coach of 34 years, to come back to the wrestling room as an assistant. Kohlhafer built Northeast into one of the state’s best teams during his tenure, leading it to the 2A/1A state title in 1993 before second-place finishes in each of the next two seasons.

“[Kohlhafer] has had a huge impact on the team,” McAlpin said. “He’s got 40 years of wrestling experience, does a great job of breaking things down, is a nice guy to talk to and is so helpful with the kids.”

The first step McAlpin took was building a foundation by convincing wrestlers from the Pasadena Buccaneers junior league program to join his team as freshmen. Since Northeast has one of the county’s smallest enrollments, young wrestlers has the chance to make varsity much sooner since there were fewer kids on the team.

“We’ve never been a school with great numbers and that never bothered me,” Kohlhafer said. “I just want to work with kids who want to learn because while wrestling is a team sport, it’s very individualistic as well. While we might not win every dual meet, I feel like we’ll be right there in the tournaments.”

For that to happen, Northeast will need a big performance from senior 145-pounder Maurice Fleming, who is 19-0 with 15 pins. He went 40-0 with 33 pins as a junior to win the 4A/3A state title after winning the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association championship as a freshman at Gilman.

“We’ve definitely exceeded a lot of expectations,” Fleming said. “It was tough here for a while because kids were scared that the practices were too hard. Now, they are realizing while it’s not easy, wrestling can still be fun.”

rsnyder@baltimoreexaminer.com