Española Valley wrestling honored its four seniors: Attilio Winn, Landon Atencio, Chiro Barrita and Kyle Coffeen during its lone home meet.
“I know it means a lot to the seniors to be able to be recognized in their community, to be recognized by their parents,” said first-year coach Emilio Atencio. “For them to be able to wrestle as seniors for their hometown, that meant a lot to coaches and wrestlers all together.”
Atencio takes over as coach for Aaron Salinas, who was the official for the meet, but he already knew many of the team members from coaching youth wrestling. He guided the Española Sundevils to a victory over Los Alamos in a dual on Wednesday at Edward Medina Gymnasium.
A year ago, at the district meet, Española defeated Los Alamos for the first time in at least a decade. They repeated that performance in a meet that did not count for district standings, but was organized primarily for the two teams to have a senior night.
“It’s my first and last time to get a senior night,” Landon Atencio said. “I was happy about it, but also a little sad, too. Because, I have to leave all these guys back in high school, and I’ve got to move on.”
Española was in a 24-0 hole before the dual started. With nobody in many of the heavier weight classes, the Sundevils lost four forfeits, worth six points each. The first full match was at 215 pounds, where Los Alamos won with a pin, and led 30-0.
Juanito Mondragon started the comeback at 107 pounds with a second-period pin. Barrita, Alejandro Valdez and Landon Atencio all scored pins as well. Cruz Sandoval won in a decision, worth three points, Maez scored another pin, and Coffeen finished it off at 152 pounds with a pin in the second period, for a 39-33 win.
“It’s always good to get a win,” Emilio Atencio said. “We have a lot of respect for Los Alamos, they’ve been tough for several years. Getting a win with a neighboring school is always a good feeling.”
For Landon Atencio, who went to middle school in Los Alamos, he wrestled against former partners and old friends.
Atencio, Sandoval and Coffeen are all looking to come back after placing second at the state tournament in 2022. All three, along with Maez, have had fantastic seasons with strong records, and picked up plenty of first-place medals at various tournaments.
“We’ve got to correct the mistakes that we made last year,” Coffeen said. “And we’ve got to work a lot harder than we did last year and push ourselves to the limit.”
The prior week, the Sundevils took third in the team standings at the Sammy Vivian Invitational in Socorro despite their limited numbers.
Española will wrestle at a Pojoaque tournament on Jan. 27-28.
“We would like to get more wrestlers out from the community to join us, to bring some new blood into the wrestling room,” Emilio Atencio said. “We can’t be coming out and going to tournaments with just eight wrestlers, it’s hard to compete.”
A previous version of this story incorrectly identified Noah Maez and not Attilio Winn as a senior.