For the first time in school history, a female coach was hired to take on the role as head coach of the wrestling team. Last season, Coach Tori Cabrera was very involved in the wrestling program as an assistant coach. “It was a really exciting time, I’m really happy I was chosen to teach these wonderful athletes,” she said.
Cabrera believes this year they have everything to succeed. “We have a lot of returners and a lot of good freshmen, so I’m excited to see how we’re able to do this year,” she said.
One issue the team needs to overcome is the lack of seniors. “This year we only have like a couple, maybe two, three seniors,” Cabrera said.
However, amongst these few seniors one stood out, Carlos Zamora. Zamora is a returner who has had 3 very strong years in wrestling and is one of the top prospects to go to State, according to Cabrera. “He’s one of our only seniors and I think for the boys, like the only one that’s been there three years,” she said. “He’s [Carlos] a really exciting wrestler to watch because he’s in the lower weight classes.”
Cabrera has also seen a lot of improvement and a lot of potential from other wrestlers. She was excited to watch Fabian Martinez, Isabel Garcia, and Irving Juarez. “I also have a lot of novice wrestlers that have been putting in some hard work and yielding good results, like Jesus Acevedo, for example,” she said.
Another very strong asset this year will be returning junior wrestler Fabian Martinez.
Last season, Martinez was able to place fourth at CCS and had very strong performances throughout his season. “This season I plan to hopefully get first at CCS and then maybe make it to State,” he said. Martinez has planned to work on increasing his stamina for this season in order to be able to withstand the long wrestling matches.
Due to the relative inexperience of her squad, Cabrera needs the learning curve to be high. “We’ve had a good amount of underclassmen, a good amount of freshmen, sophomores, and a bit of juniors, so focusing on them, giving them exposure to the tougher tournaments, the tougher matches will be good because I think you learn a lot more when you lose in comparison to when you win,” Cabrera said.
While the team’s youth and inexperience is a challenge, having over 100 wrestlers adds a layer on top of that. This year, like many past years, one of the team’s greatest strengths is their size. Having over 100 wrestlers actively participating allows for the team to have various options in tournaments and in Dual meets. However, having a very big team does cause issues during practices as not many wrestlers lose out on reps and is much harder for them to progress with coaches having to get to many other wrestlers as well. Many wrestlers express their feelings on this and many show to see this as something positive rather than negative. “ I find myself working harder knowing there are 99 more wrestlers, it pushes me to my limits,” Irving Gael stated, as a first year wrestler that has shown and proven his skills by making varsity as a freshman.
After a season where the team won league, placed 4th in the PCAL championships, 3rd in CCS Regionals, 2nd in CCS Masters, and sent two wrestlers to State, Cabrera has high expectations. “My goals for this season are to repeat what we did last year or surpass it.” She also set the goal of sending 2 or more wrestlers to state championships. CCS decided to change the State qualifying and add one more, so this year the Top 4 in CCS can go to State. “I’m really excited by the new placement rules! I hope this helps us take more kids to state and get more names on the board,” Cabrera said.
While having many wrestlers, Cabrera has been able to manage that by setting individual goals. By giving each wrestler a list of weights they should be at every day it helps her and her coaching staff manage performance based on who is continuing on growing and keeping their weight.
In December, the team traveled to San Benito High School to compete in the Hollister Dual. This helped Cabrera get a view of what is to come this season. The team finished 3-3 and did not place. “We have a young team this year, for both our girls and boys, so it was nice to see them compete at new challenging levels. I’m happy with their performance and looking forward to their progress,” she said.
At the Los Banos Morning star tournament, two wrestlers – Martinez and Gustavo Tapia – exceeded expectations and showed why they are the favorites to go to state, as they both won. “I practice every day for these moments and I’m really happy with my performance,” Martinez said.
In their first Dual Meet, they faced the Palma Chieftains. Many wrestlers had tremendous performances, such as Sergio Puentes, Zamora, Martinez, Tapia, and Valentin Ramirez. The final score was 43-30, giving Alisal their first win of the season. Cabrera was proud of her team’s performance, “More wins like these is what I hope to see,” she said.
Overall, this year will be full of new and exciting wrestlers that are ready to show their talents and what they are capable of. Cabrera sees this team going very far and hopes to maintain the momentum of their win over Palma to continue and reach that league championship.