Wrestling is a winter sport for both the girls and boys teams. For incoming students who want to be a part of a team but don’t want to go through the struggle of trying out, this sport is for them.

Everyone is welcome and the team accepts all levels and weights. Because there are no tryouts, the team’s only requirement is for students to be committed.

“We do drills that help us defend ourselves,” said sophomore Brianna Le. “We do conditioning [and] we try to lose weight in a healthy fashion…I started out wrestling in ninth grade not knowing anything or knowing anybody and then throughout the season I bonded with people… And anyone can join wrestling, any body type, any type of person can really join wrestling. You just have to stick with [it] and want to do it.”

Weight classes are an important thing to know about for new team members. In order to fit into a certain weight category for tournaments, the wrestler may want to lose weight to be in their desired class. A weight class is a category that each person wrestles in.  There are 14 classes, and even if a wrestler is a minuscule amount of weight above the desired weight, they are moved up to the next class.

There is no issue if someone moves up a weight class, but it can certainly be more difficult because the opposing team members are bigger and stronger. Additionally, when a person doesn’t make the desired weight class, sometimes they can’t wrestle because there is not enough room in the brackets to fit them in. 

“[Wrestling] teaches you a lot of discipline. You have to be on yourself if you want to be good,” said sophomore Danika Collier. “We go to tournaments and dual-meets and tri-meets at other schools where you wrestle other people in your weight. We [also] do team banquets and potlucks sometimes.”

The team tries to be supportive of each other and the coach aims to provide help to the members. However, showing up to practice is only half the battle.

Tournaments occur nearly every week and require a lot of time commitment. In the tournaments each member is trying to wrestle for first place. If someone loses their first match, they get bumped down to wrestling for third place. If they lose their second match, they are eliminated from the tournament and are done. For CIF, five matches is the maximum amount of matches a person can wrestle.

“It teaches ninth graders how to defend themselves in a way and open up themselves to different experiences and different people,” said Le. “The team is very close-knit; I would technically say they are my second family.”