Co-ed Varsity Wrestling fell 60-24 to Santa Clara High School and 36-18 to MacDonald High School on Thursday, Jan. 9, during its first tri-dual meet of the season. The meet consisted of three rounds of games between the three schools. MVHS faced SCHS in the first round, and MHS in the third.
SCHS took an early lead against MVHS, and despite the wins that MVHS gained in matches three and five that second-year wrestler junior Jason Leung and junior Skyler Wong respectively won, they were ultimately unable to turn the game around. In the third round, both MHS and MVHS started strong, but the opposing team gained more points later in the round. MVHS was not able to catch up, resulting in their second loss.
Sophomore Kennedy Ancheta, who has been wrestling for two years and competed in the 105-pound weight category, attributes the team’s loss to shaky wrestling fundamentals but believes that the team persevered well throughout the entire meet. In the first match of the round against MHS, Ancheta won her match in one period.
“Mostly we just need to work on coming to practice and working together more, making sure we try to push each other,” Ancheta said. “For me, the practices have been going fine, but I think as a team, we need to start pushing each other more and picking up the pace.”
Wong reflects on his individual performance, saying that one aspect he did well was persisting instead of giving up when he was tired. Despite his personal win, he believes that the team could’ve worked more on their technique.
“For the shot, we could have held the head better once we pinned them,” Wong said. “We could have also worked on our halves and doing full holds.”
Sophomore Winnie Liang, who is also in her second year of wrestling, played the first match against SCHS. She comments on the specific team dynamic that the freshmen bring to the team because they are new to the sport. Similar to Ancheta, she believes that the team did well in persevering throughout the game, and all approached their matches trying their best.
“We’re starting off a little slow so that everyone can get used to the pace, as a lot of us, especially freshmen, are still pretty new to wrestling,” Liang said. “Everybody did pretty good with their shots, and we were not scared to take our shots and we weren’t scared to fight. Everyone went off basically doing their best.”
Both Ancheta and Liang stress the importance of mental stamina and how it’s underlooked in a predominantly physical sport. Liang reflects that wrestling is more about having a strong mindset going into each of the matches, no matter the possibility of winning or losing.
“Wrestling is a very mentally challenging sport, and a lot of people don’t realize that until they actually start it,” Ancheta said. “They just see it as a physical contact sport, but it’s really more mental than physical.”