On January 12, 2019, the fourth annual San Pasqual High School girls wrestling home meet began at 9:30 am, and the San Pasqual team had been at the school since 6 am. Over 40 teams and nearly 300 wrestlers attended.

The girls wrestling team is up at the school the night before their tournament setting up mats for hours. Then they have to be back at the school before 6 am to start the tournament.

“Honestly there’s so much time and effort being put into a home tournament, which consists of setting up mats the day before, making sure they’re secure, then the next day we have to have people to do stats,” junior Belen Moreno said. “So there’s at least five mats and three people at each mat to work that match, usually wrestlers have to multi task to help out, there isn’t many people to help.”

After the team has wrestled and worked all day, they stay after to help clean and put up the mats. This usually takes three hours. These girls are at the school from 6 am-10 pm, a process that requires about 17 hours for a tournament that takes around eight hours.

“Usually home tournaments end at 6 or 7, which means the home team wrestlers at the end of the day have to stay and clean up the trash, clean the bleachers, roll up mats and put them away, this takes about 3 hours.” Moreno said.

Even though it is the same as every other tournament, being at home with friends and family watching has brought added pressure to the girls.

“I placed 3rd at the home tournament,” Moreno  said. “My emotions are off and on, I felt like I needed to win because it was our home tournament or this girls really good what if she beats me and makes me look bad at my own school.”

The girls who wrestle are usually cutting weight, as they dehydrate themselves and starve to make a certain weight.

“The hardest part of wrestling is starving because it takes a certain mental toughness to fight against your bodies natural needs, but the rewards after ward are always worth it, and of course we eat good at the end of every tournament,” senior Savannah Lawrence said.

“At our home tournament it was a fight, it taught me even more about the importance of wanting, because wrestling is all about who wants it more,” Lawrence said. “Although a match is generally 6 minutes, they are the longest 6 minutes of your life and you have to fight every second of it no matter how exhausted you may be before, since I knew this was the last round of matches at my own school, which I feel made me wrestle with more passion, heart &, as always, the want to win.” Since it is a home tournament, these girls have to go in with a different mindset because they are at their house.