Rock Climbing Team Rises to a Successful Season

Rock climbing is an interesting sport that combines patience, strength, critical thinking and endurance. It is not one that is always super popular, and you do not see it all the time in high school. Here at Wauwatosa East, we are lucky to be able to harbor a rock climbing club and team, and a pretty good one at that. The Cardinal News was able to get a firsthand look at the newly formed team and had a chance to talk with members of the squad.

Rock climbing competitions happen at both of Adventure Rocks’ locations in Milwaukee and Brookfield on Friday nights at 5pm. Teams accumulate points and the school with the most at the end wins the competition. Senior Thomas McKenna says,; “The sport is extremely different from most conventional sports. It's not about the competition between two people, it’s [about] you and the wall. Climbing helps you learn patience, perseverance and dedication. It teaches you to stay calm and think of new ways to approach problems.” The first competition on November 10th was won by Wauwatosa East, winning with a total of 622 points, 66 points ahead of second place Pewaukee. East only had 14 competitors in that competition, and still won, compared to the 32 Pewaukee had. This really speaks to the quality of climbers we have here at East.

It was a big deal to the students as well. “It was an amazing start to our season and I think it gave us more confidence for the rest of the season, and is what lead us to our second win,” said senior Sophia Maglio. That aforementioned second win came on December 15th, with Tosa pulling first place again, with a narrow 11 point win (638-627) over Pewaukee. Again, with only 14 competitors, East continued their dominance.

The Raiders eventually faltered a little, and had their first loss of the season in their most recent competition on January 12th, coming up only 6 points (497-503) short of Pewaukee. East was somewhat short handed in this competition, with only 10 climbers in total for the Raiders, versus the 30 brought in by the Pirates. The Red Raiders now sit at 2-1 in competitions with two remaining before the finals. “We have done really well this year,” Mckenna explained. “First semester, we won two out of the three competitions and individually a lot of our climbers have gotten into finals.”

Contrary to popular belief, more schools than just East and Pewaukee compete in these competitions. Maglio divulged into that a little, stating that; “[t]There are many schools that compete in these [climbing] competitions including DSHA, Marquette, Pewaukee, (Whitefish Bay) Dominican, a home school team, as well as other schools that are near the Milwaukee area.” There are 23 teams in total from both the Brookfield and Milwaukee areas, and they all participate in these competitions, leading up to the State Finals in April.

The Wauwatosa East climbing team practices at Adventure Rock Brookfield on Tuesdays from 4:30-6:30pm. Their next competition is February 23rd at Adventure Rock Milwaukee, and they hope to continue their positive run all the way to the State Finals. Good luck to all the climbers.