Wrestling team gears up for first dual meet

Wrestling team gears up for first dual meet

By Justin Wang

The wrestling team gears up for their first upcoming dual meet against Branham High School at PHHS on Jan. 3, 2019.

“Our dual meet is in early January, BVALS is the first week of February and then CCS is the second week,” explained Wrestling Captain junior Aaron Lee about the schedule for the wrestling season.

All dual meets are set to occur throughout January.

“And first we weigh in and then we wrestle by weight, like lightest to heaviest,” said sophomore Eric Bustos

The wrestling team is being led by three coaches this year, named Coach Mefi, Coach Caleb and Coach Alexis.

“An alumni is our coach and he’s doing a good job mixing in conditioning and techniques,” said Lee, in reference to Coach Caleb.

This year the wrestling team dropped from A-league to B-league, but the wrestling team won’t let that deter them.

“In A-league it was pretty hard for me, but now I’m on the older side, I’m bigger, I’m just more developed than the other people and I’ll probably do better this year,” said Lee when asked about how he thinks he’ll fair this season.

However, there seem to be some concern stemming from the number of people on the team.

“It’ll be close, we might have some overlap, but out of the consistent people there are people of the same weight, so some of the weight classes will have like two people in them and then they might have to drop down or go up,” said Lee about the number of players.

Nonetheless, that seemed to be the only concern the team has.

“It’s just that we need better attendance, just more responsibility,” said Arriaga about any of the concerns he has.

The players who are participating in the wrestling team will be staying in high spirits.

“I’d say with our selection of people, since our conditioning is a lot earlier than when the season starts, we have a good chance at making some good players, so I have a good feeling about it,” said Arriaga.

With how positive the wrestling team is, one has to wonder what keeps the hard working students on the wrestling team tick.

“I mostly want to get fit, it’s fun to like be with other people, socialize. It’s mostly for something like a sort of sense of teamwork. Because that’s really what wrestling is, we all put our individual effort in to win,” said Arriaga.

Arriaga recommended his friends to come out and join wrestling with him.

“I’d say that wrestling is a really good sport for people who aren’t confident enough to try football, because wrestling definitely is underappreciated especially considering what sports people think are really cool and all that stuff. Well yeah, I’d just say that wrestling is really fun and I’d invite my friends to come out and do it,” added Arriaga.