Emotions ran high for the Española Valley High School wrestlers as they opened their season by hosting the Sundevil Classic invitational tournament. The Sundevils used their first and only home wrestling meet Nov. 28 to honor outgoing coach Henry MacErnie with public accolades and a first-place trophy.
During the afternoon lunch break in the day-long tournament, assistant coach Aaron Salinas grabbed the announcer’s microphone and assembled a group of MacErnie’s former assistant coaches and wrestlers to thank MacErnie for his 20 years of service to the school’s wrestling program.
“It was a total surprise,” MacErnie said. “I’m deeply honored they did that. It was pretty emotional.”
MacErnie, who will retire as Española’s coach at the end of this season, said he won’t be completely finished with wrestling. He said he plans to move to Albuquerque to coach his grandsons.
With MacErnie in mind, the Sundevils came out with some impressive performances.
The dual-format tournament pitted Española against District 2AAAA foes Taos High School and Capital High School, as well as against Pecos High School and a piecemeal team with wrestlers from West Las Vegas High School, Robertson High School, Santa Fe High School and Bataan Military Academy.
The Sundevils themselves fielded only half a team, having assessed wrestlers in just seven of 14 weight classes and none above the 152-pound mark. The state requires wrestlers to be assessed at the start of every season to determine at what weight they can safely compete, and many Española wrestlers were still trying to drop weight before that assessment, Salinas said. Every match for which a team does not have a wrestler is counted as a 6-0 forfeit.
That caused the Sundevils to lose their match against Taos 42-37, despite an 11-3 win by 119-pounder Chris Espinoza, a grueling overtime win by Dino Gipson, and pins by Isaiah Martinez, Mariano Montoya and junior Paul Bustamante. Taos sent the most complete team to the tournament with 12 wrestlers.
“We’re a very small team but very tough,” Salinas said. “The really experienced guys like Dino, Mariano and Isaiah push the other guys to get better.”
Indeed, throughout the day, the Española wrestlers who actually made it to the mat were dominant. Gipson, Bustamante, Martinez, Montoya and sophomore Corey Atencio ended several matches within the first two minutes with quick pins.
“We’re going to be really good this year,” Atencio said. “We have an excellent coaching staff and we’ve been working really, really hard in practice. This is coach MacErnie’s last year, so we’re trying to bring back a (state) trophy for him.”
The Sundevils racked up a 48-45 win over Pecos, a 60-36 win over Capital and a 48-18 win over the mixed team. At the end of the day, Española had garnered a first-place finish with 180 points, and Montoya earned honors as outstanding wrestler in the 145-pound class. Taos finished second with 178 points, followed by Pecos with 156, the mixed team with 147 and Capital with 133.
“We didn’t have our best team here, but the kids wrestled well,” MacErnie said. “It was a good start for the year.”