Head coach Aaron Salinas’s efforts to recruit a hefty football player to the Española Valley High School wrestling team have been in vain.
He has worked the halls, trying to get football players to come to the practices. He even ordered a new set of uniforms, similar to the style worn by fighters of mixed martial arts — fighting shorts and compression shirts.
With all of Salinas’s effort, he still does not have anybody to wrestle in the heaviest two weight classes — 195 pounds and 220 pounds.
“We’ve got to concentrate on the kids we have, you know, the ones who want to be here,” he said. “Right now, half of my team is McCurdy.”
Since McCurdy Charter School does not have a wrestling team, any interested students can go to Española to participate, which has led Salinas to mix mascots and nickname his wrestling team the “Sun Cats.”
In fact, one of the most experienced wrestlers on the team, Alejandro Santizo, commuted from McCurdy, to wrestle when he was in eighth grade. The sophomore is currently enrolled at Española, though.
“It was kind of a cool experience,” he said. “I didn’t think I would be able to (wrestle), since I went to a different school.”
Freshman Moises Guzman, who just took up the sport, is one Bobcat that Salinas is excited to see grow as a wrestler. He has been impressed with his toughness and eagerness to learn wrestling.
For the most part, the wrestling team’s ranks are filled with youth. The team has one senior, Joseph Hice, although this is his first year wrestling.
Two of the team’s most experienced wrestlers are sophomores, Santizo and Nico Pacheco. Those two will compete to earn the starting place at the 126-pound weight class, and one of them will be forced to compete at 132 pounds.
A total of seven seniors graduated from last year’s team, including former captain Dominic Medina.
This year’s captain is junior Edgar Sanchez, who will wrestle at 145 pounds. Despite the relatively inexperienced and young team, he is excited at the numbers that have made their way to the wrestling room.
“I think it has been going perfect,” Sanchez said. “We have rebuilt our middle school program, which is awesome. We haven’t had that in years, actually. We’ve had new coaches come in, and a lot of them, so that way we can work more one on one.”
Salinas has enlisted the help of a pair of assistant coaches, Jesse Berryhill and Thomas Walker.
Berryhill went to the state tournament, while wrestling at Española, and Walker is a former high school wrestler from New York.
About half of the team is made up of junior high wrestlers. Salinas has had both programs wrestle at the same time, and often, high schoolers become mentors for the younger wrestlers.
The first bit of experience for this young team will be at the first meet of the year, which will be held on Dec. 1, at Rio Rancho High School.