Selma High School’s wrestling tryouts have started with both boys and girls wrestling as they kick off the season with many newcomers and those who are from the youth programs or other schools.
The girl’s wrestling team will be having their first tournament in Porterville, and the boys wrestling team will be having their tournament at Madera South after their hard work for prepping for the season. Coach Figueroa is in her second year of coaching the girls wrestling team and already has big goals and expectations for the incoming girls wrestling season, as does Coach Mendoza does for the boys wrestling team with much experience to go along with it.
“Hard work pays off, it sounds cliche but wrestling is a true testament to that. The more work you put into the sport the greater the pay out,” says coach Mendoza.
The Selma boys wrestling team had five boys go to state and one finishing third in the state, resulting in high expectations for this season. Coach Mendoza has been coaching for eight years, now in his sixth year working with Selma High, and also leading the team as head coach for three years. He’s determined to be pushing his returning boys to reach their goal of state, there are also newcomers who are joining the team next year to grasp the basics of wrestling.
“The biggest obstacle for the team was staying calm in a match. We really improved on this last season. This season, we should do really well,” says Damian Alvarez.
Damian had proudly placed third in state last year and won 8-0 in their conference last season, he recognizes how much he’s grown over the years with wrestling. Since Damian is nearing his high school graduation next year, he wants everyone as a team to qualify for the state tournament. He hopes this season will go well with the amount of improvements the team and he himself have shown.
“Mariana Hernandez, my juniors, like “Bug” – that’s her nickname, Kailey is her name, and Layla, to help them achieve what they want to achieve,” Coach Figueroa mentions.
Coach Figueroa is in her second year as the women’s head coach for wrestling and her goals for this season are solely directed towards helping her wrestlers grow and become satisfied with where they’re at. The relationships between her and the girls have grown strong as she has grown familiar with them. But, what she mostly wants to tackle this year is working on growing everyone’s confidence this season.
“The biggest obstacle the team has faced is probably communication with each other,” Kailey Salazar says, or “bug”.
Both the students and coaches express how wrestling is easy to pick up with the basics and such, but it can take a big toll on you and push you to achieve your highest potential. Maintaining a good mentality and keeping a healthy body weight are two main points Coach Figueroa mentions to newcomers who are interested in joining the sport. Kailey found this to be a struggle too, making this a new challenge for the girls to improve on this year. But despite these challenges, last season was one to remember for the girls wrestling team.
“I think we did very well! We were 1 point away from winning our section title, thinking we weren’t even going to be top three,” says Coach Figueroa.
Even though Coach Figueroa feels the girls weren’t ready mentally for their matches, their hard work really shined as they were so close to winning their section title last season.
It is apparent that both the girls and boys wrestling teams of Selma High School have high hopes for the season as they are set on having more state qualifiers or win their section and overall be the best in the state. Newcomer numbers are increasing, determination is rising, and expectations are high with both the boys , girls and coaches for this year with the joyful eagerness growing as the season approaches.
