5th ANNUAL
BRENDAN GRANT WRESTLING TOURNAMENT

Held Saturday, 7 January 2006 in Belmont, MA


The Fifth Annual Brendan Grant Wrestling  Tournament was held at Belmont High School all day on Saturday 7 January 2006.  This year the weather was thankfully cooperative with a mild New England winter day.  The event is hosted each year by the Friends of Belmont Wrestling and Belmont High School, and once again the efforts of numerous hard-working volunteers resulted in a successful tournament.

The 2006 tournament had a sixteen bracket format similar to that of previous year's, and this year thirteen high school teams participated.  These teams were from the following New England area high schools:  Arlington, Belmont, Catholic Memorial (West Roxbury), Concord/Carlisle, East Providence RI, Hingham, Keefe Tech (Framingham), Lexington, Malden, Nashoba, Nashua North NH, Newton North, and Wellesley.

The overall team winner this year was East Providence (R.I.). Finishing in second was Catholic Memorial and taking third was Wellesley.  The event moved quickly through the day, as a five mat format allowed the tournament to proceed efficiently.

The Belmont Marauders did not place in the top five, but did have several grapplers perform well. At 119, Adam Howe took second place in his class, falling in the finals to Malden's Bob Wingerter. At 135, Charlie McKenna, just back from a knee injury, went 4-2 and took fifth place overall. Garen Koutoujian grabbed fourth place in the 140-pound weight class, and JoeLorusso (171) won two matches and looked strong. Both Joe LoRusso and Garen Koutoujian came from behind in the third period to win matches.

Additional information on the Belmont Wrestling Team can be found at the Belmont Wrestling Website.  

Previously referred to as the Belmont Invitational Wrestling Tournament, this event has for the last 25 years been one of the premier High School Wrestling gatherings of its kind in the Northeast region.   The first Belmont tournament was held in December 1981 with eight teams participating, and was renamed in Brendan's honor in January 2002.  

Brendan Grant was a devoted member of the Tournament's host wrestling squad during all four of his high school years, and during the 1999-2000 season he was one of the team captains that led the squad to one of their more successful seasons in years.  Click here for the story about the Brendan Grant Wrestling Tournament held in January 2005.

Overall, this year's 2006 invitational wrestling tournament was once again a great success.