Varsity Wrestling went undefeated during the 2025-2026 season with a 14-0 record in the El Camino division of the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League. According to Head Coach Andrew Nakamatsu-Pappas, one reason the team did so well this season was that every member learned the same techniques and went through the same conditioning, regardless of skill level. The team bridged the gap between newer wrestlers and veterans throughout the season.
“I really try to get the basics done, because that’s what’s going to get us to win matches,” Pappas said. “So we had to take it slow at times with the basics. It got kind of boring, but for the veterans, we really needed to sharpen up there. We get a lot of live matches during practice because we have different body types, different experiences.”
Pappas mentions that the four senior first-year wrestlers rounded out the team by adding more heavyweights to the lineup. Captain and junior Kennedy Ancheta agree that the physicality of the first-year seniors, many of whom had a background in football, made up for their lack of experience in wrestling and made them integral to close victories.
“Los Altos and Cupertino were both really, really close meets, because the people are good there, and we had really good competition,” Ancheta said. “We just relied on our practice, on our training, but the heavyweights really helped a lot later on in the meet when it really counted.”
Senior Graham Ischo says that he and other first-year seniors learned quickly because of the leadership of other, more experienced wrestlers such as junior Booker Vollrath and senior Christopher Lamfalusi. The athleticism the first-year seniors gained before wrestling due to the football season allowed them to contribute to the team heavily during dual meets.
“Chris is a three-year wrestler right now, so he helped me a lot since I didn’t really know what I was doing,” Ischo said. “It was hard at first for me to really practice and feel like I was making any progress, since it was so easy for him to beat me up in practice, but over time, I could really start to see myself progressing. I won my first matches, and that helped me feel better. I’m actually not bad at the sport anymore. I’m making some progress. I’m becoming a wrestler.”
While the team’s large size made it easier for them to win dual meets consistently, Ancheta notes that sickness and injuries among wrestlers led to setbacks early on in the season. The team often relied on a full lineup to score points with forfeits, since any wrestlers MVHS had in weight classes that other teams didn’t have gave them a guaranteed six team points per wrestler before the meet started. Ancheta says that missing players made each match within a dual meet much more important.
“Our team got hit hard,” Ancheta said. “We had so many dual meets where we were missing a lot of people. We had to make sure we were healthy before coming back because if you come back sick, you can get the whole team sick, so we prioritized getting healthy first. With injuries, you have to either wrestle through it or, if it’s really bad, sit it out. But overall, we gave it our all.”
With each dual meet consisting of many individual matches, Ischo says that motivation on a personal level was integral to consistent victory across the season. In particular, Ischo attributes the team’s perseverance to Pappas’ speeches before and after dual meets.
“Coach Pappas’ speeches are very motivational,” Ischo said. “I think they boost the team morale a lot. He talks about some very real aspects of life that correlate to wrestling when he makes his speeches. It’s very helpful when you’re in a match or you’re in practice and you’re struggling to just hear that reinforcement. It helps coming from someone that you trust and who’s very good at what they do.”
Pappas says the biggest setback the team faced initially was the lack of cohesion among all of its members. He notes how some wrestlers only participate for PE credit, while others felt divided due to differences in grade level. However, in the dual meet against Cupertino High School, Pappas saw the team all come together to win despite losing the first individual matches. The shared victory of the dual meet created momentum that carried on to the rest of the season.
“It was our first dual meet where our veterans had bad matches,” Pappas said. “We lost matches that we probably shouldn’t have. And so then it came down to underclassmen or brand new wrestlers; if we want to win, this is on them. As we started getting pins, I could see the team cheering each other on. It was the first time I’d seen our team really be a team. The meet against Cupertino really showed that sometimes veterans have bad days, but if we have the younger ones step up, then we can do this.”
