Canfield’s Georgio Poullas is wrestling with success

February 11, 2016 at 12:10a.m.

Georgio Poullas is wrestling with success

CANFIELD

Georgio Poullas is a kid nobody wants to wrestle and who lives to take down others just like him.

Early in the Canfield wrestler’s career, his combination of aggression, quickness and strength was such that it was unsettling to his teammates.

“There were times in middle school where kids would avoid him,” Cardinals assistant wrestling coach Stephen Pitts said. “They don’t want to wrestle him and I don’t want to wrestle him and I’m an adult.

“He’s always tough, he’s always in people’s faces and that’s what wrestlers do and that’s why he’s successful.”

Figuratively and literally, the junior grappler is having his biggest season yet. His exploits on the mat have him ranked No. 1 in the state at 152 pounds, according to the Ohio High School Wrestling Coaches Association. He’s also earned national accolades, sitting at No. 20 nationally at his weight class according to intermatwrestle.com.

“I was pretty happy about it. It made me want to go harder in practice,” Poullas said. “People know I’m at the top so I have to work harder to stay there.”

Poullas (33-2) had spent the last two seasons wrestling at 126 pounds before making the jump. He stayed at that weight as a sophomore because his coaches felt that was his best spot as far as winning a state championship. That plan nearly worked. He finished No. 6 in the state. Rather than have Poullas cut weight, he spent the offseason in the weight room.

“I just wanted to get bigger and stronger,” Poullas said. “Competing at a higher weight when you used to wrestle at a lower weight, the guys are sometimes not as fast. It gives you an advantage.”

Poullas and Pitts also spent the offseason traveling all over, from North Dakota to North Carolina. During the Ironman Tournament at Walsh University, Poullas got a taste of what it’s like to wrestle with a known reputation.

“Right out of the gate, he wrestled a kid he knew and [his opponent] stopped all of his moves,” Pitts said. “He beat us in a really close match, but later on, we beat him by adjusting. Georgio does a good job of adjusting when people kind of know what he’s doing. It’s kind of a cat-and-mouse game where you have to be a step ahead of the next guy.”

Even before he earned his No. 1 status, Poullas was a known quantity from his runs to the state tournament as a freshman and sophomore. Because of this, Poullas has to constantly change his go-to moves to try and catch opponents who’ve scouted him off-guard.

“Some guys know how to stop my stuff when they scout me and know what’s coming. I practice in the room every day to have a different shot in case they know my go-to move, I can switch it to something else,” Poullas said. “My coach always helps me come up with something in case they stop my go-to.

“It’s a lot of the little things in wrestling. A lot of people think it’s about how many moves you know. Well, it’s about how many moves you know well.”

Poullas is one of the few full-time wrestlers at Canfield. The Cardinals have other quality wrestlers who played football, such as 220-pound Jacob Esarco and the 170-pound David Crawford. Poullas opted out of playing other sports to pursue what he calls a lifestyle.

“His vision was to be a wrestler. Not all of our guys do that, but he’s one of them,” Pitts said. “It is an obsession. You are always thinking about it as a wrestler. I don’t want to sound rude or arrogant about it, but this is the toughest sport in the world.

Said Poullas: “If it was easy, everybody would do it. A lot of people don’t do it because they’re mentally or physically not tough enough.”

The recruitment letters are starting to come in for Poullas and while it’s too early to narrow down a destination, he has one set of criteria for choosing schools.

“For what I want to do, I want to go into a nursing program,” he said. “Every time I get a letter, I check out if they have a good nursing program or medical program.

“My whole family, my mom, my dad and my brother and sister went into it and it’s something I know a lot about. It would suit me well.”

At the end of this month, Poullas will begin what projects to be his third straight trip to Columbus. He’s just as familiar with the state championship atmosphere just as much as his opponents there will be familiar with him.

“The first time I was there, I was nervous and it got to me a little bit,” he said. “The second time, I was used to it, but things just didn’t go my way. So, hopefully this year, I can achieve my goals.”