Athlete Of The Week: Duante Gray

GLOUCESTER – Two of Duante Gray’s Nauset-Cape Cod Tech wrestling teammates watching from just off the mat reacted to his final match at the Division 3 state championship in Gloucester on Saturday.

“First year wrestling, third in states,” one teammate said.

“That’s crazy,” the other Warrior replied.

The quick exchange captured the essence of Gray’s wrestling story in 2025-26. Gray, a senior at Cape Tech, had never wrestled prior to this season. He joined the team in the first place to get better at jiu-jitsu, which he’s done for about a year and a half.

Just a few months since starting out, Gray earned a third-place finish last weekend at states in the 285-pound class after winning the group’s consolation bracket. He will advance to All-States.

“I wanted to do as much as I possibly could, because I didn't know I would like it this much,” Gray said. “And though I wish I could have started earlier, I'm not going to keep thinking and regretting that I didn't start it earlier. Rather, I'm just going to keep pushing as hard as I can and see how far I can go.”

At the Division 3 state tournament, Gray took down Wilmington’s Jonathan Panatta 2-0 in the round of 16 but was defeated by Holyoke’s Parker Brunelle (by fall) in the quarterfinals.

Then Gray won four straight matches to win the consolation bracket and finish third in the class. He bested Keefe Tech’s Caio DePaula (by fall) in the consolation second round, Hanover’s John Danick (by fall) in the quarterfinals and Athol’s Nicholas Leblanc 4-1 (via a fourth round sudden victory) in the semifinals. In the consolation final, Gray defeated Scituate’s Kevin Dwyer (by fall). He walked off the mat afterwards with coaches Taylor Hirst and James Rosato at each side, all three of them sporting big grins. 

“He’s very coachable,” Rosato said. He's a good athlete. Listen, heavyweight wrestling is very simple. It’s just, you’ve got to do a couple things right. There's a couple mistakes you’ve got to avoid. And if you can do that, be tactical, then you can get pretty far.”

Gray joined the team with some natural ability, Rosato said, but otherwise learned the sport from the ground up. He was shown a couple moves and some different positions, taught tactical awareness and how to escape defensive positions. That’s all he needed. Rosato said he didn’t think they’d ever had a first-year wrestler medal at the state tournament.

“It's huge,” he said. “He wrestled super smart. Super smart. Super well-played game.”

Gray said the transition from jiu-jitsu to wrestling was hard at first, that there was something of a learning curve.

“You don't get breaks or pauses like you do in wrestling, so it's like you take that stamina from it,” Gray said. “You take that mental determination and perseverance from jiu-jitsu, because it's very mental. Like you have to be able to keep going. Even when it feels hard, you keep pushing from it.”

Now, Gray has started to get a feel for what he can put together and use on the wrestling mat. After the stellar day at the Division 3 state championship, he advanced to All-States, to be held March 1 and 2 at the MassMutual Center in Springfield. In only one short season, Gray has gone from just trying and learning the sport with hopes of getting better at a different martial arts discipline to competing among Massachusetts’ best.

From jiu-jitsu, he knew a season of wrestling would be hard. From jiu-jitsu, he was used to hard.

“It's not anything new, I feel like,” Gray said. “I compete all the time in jiu-jitsu, so now it's kind of like, it's very cool, and I'm very proud of myself for getting this far, but it's nothing that I haven't done before.”