Griffin Ready To Live Up To Brothers' Standards on the Mat

Watching and waiting.

That is something Griffin Bonner has been doing a lot of for the past few years. Griffin, the younger brother of Sean and Rory Bonner, attended dozens of wrestling matches the last few years, watching his brothers win match after match at , building the family name along the way.

On Wednesday, with the roles reversed and older brother Sean looking on from the crowd, Griffin finally got his chance to wrestle a home varsity match for the Eagles.

“I’ve always been sitting and watching,” Bonner said. “I came to all the matches the previous years watching my brothers do well, and you get excited thinking, ‘I’m going to be out there next year.’ You get your hopes up, and now I am finally here. It’s something I worked hard for.”

Bonner scored a first period pin over Lindenwold’s David Harris-Norton in 1:43, giving Eagles’ fans just a small taste of what the four years could hold.

“Griffin is coming in with a great pedigree,” West Deptford coach John Craig said after watching his team open the regular season with a 60-18 win over Lindenwold. “He has a really strong background in wrestling. He has been coming in working well, looking good and took third in a big tournament already as a freshman, and he took care of business tonight.”

Griffin is the lone freshman to crack the varsity lineup, but his doing so was not a big surprise to those who saw him wrestle in the West Deptford youth program. Armed with knowledge passed down from his brothers and father, Sean, who was a collegiate wrestler at Lafayette, and a go-get-it attitude, Bonner beat out a competitive class of lightweights to earn his spot on the roster.

Rory believes big things will come from his brother.

“Me and my older brother have both done really well, so I expect my younger brother to do the same, maybe even better,” Rory said.

Rory–a junior and the Eagles' top returning wrestler–and Sean each experienced great highs and tough defeats through their careers. Both wrestled through to the regional level, but neither has claimed a Region 8 title. Rory believes that Griffin having seen him and Sean endure tough losses will serve as extra fuel.

“I think it will definitely motivate him to work harder,” Rory said. “He has seen us fail almost at a bigger level, and maybe that will make him want it more.”

Griffin credits his brothers with not only teaching him what he knows on the mat, but also keeping him in line in life’s more important matters.

“My brothers were a big influence on me staying motivated, staying on track with not just wrestling, but in school,” Griffin said. “They tell me, I gotta get good grades, or I’m going to get a little knuckle to the head.”

Griffin also understands that with the success of his brothers comes added pressure on him. People see his last name and expect big things, even if Griffin is just a 100-pound freshman. Even though the expectations may be a bit unreasonable, Griffin doesn’t seem to mind. He embraces the added pressure and is confident he can live up to the standard Sean and Rory have set.

“Before I started high school wrestling, people were coming up to me in school and saying, ‘Wrestling season is coming, are you going to do well?’

"I have that little standard that I have to live up to. They come up to me and say, ‘Your brothers do great; I want to see you come up and do well too.’ I feel like I am going to live up to that standard, that bar that was set.”

Craig believes he will too.

“Over the next four years he is going to make a name for himself,” Craig said, “with or without the brothers.”