GILROY – Last week the Christopher High wrestling team defeated
Seaside in a dual meet 48-39.
Another run-of-the-mill victory? Not in the least.
GILROY – Last week the Christopher High wrestling team defeated Seaside in a dual meet 48-39.
Another run-of-the-mill victory? Not in the least.
The Cougars wrestle at the varsity level in the Monterey Bay League.
Still not impressed?
As is well known by now, the CHS campus is home to just freshmen and sophomores this year, typically not the grade levels needed to form a complete varsity team. But that did not stop athletic director Darren Yafai and head coach Alecxis Lara from taking on the challenge.
“We have such a strong wrestling tradition in this town that we felt we could compete,” Yafai said.
After a successful petition to the MBL to allow the team to join a year ahead of schedule, the Cougars’ wrestling team is the first at the new school to compete as a varsity squad in a league.
The MBL will be the home to all CHS teams beginning next school year.
As practices commenced, the kids had no idea they were going to be competing at the varsity level.
“I was pretty excited,” said Alejandro Lustre, who transferred from Gilroy High and was a member of the wrestling team there. “A lot of schools have juniors and seniors on the teams, and we are basicallythe smallest kids, but we are still going to put our name out there.”
Lara said that of the 27 kids on the roster, just “four or five” of them have past experience, yet the Cougars are able to fill out the 14 weight classes using eight sophomores and six freshmen.
“We are starting from scratch and that’s OK,” he said. “They are good kids. They are all hard workers.”
Lara, a graduate of Gilroy High’s class of 2001, wrestled at Skyline College for three years before wrapping up his eligibility at San Francisco State where he appeared in NCAA Division II National Championships.
Wanting to keep his competitive five ablaze, Lara turned to former Gilroy High head coach Armando Gonzalez whose advice led to his decision to pursue coaching.
“When I came here in September to recruit, I told the kids that this is a big wrestling community,” Lara said. “I wanted to let them know how successful the junior high and the other high school are…I wanted to bring the success over here.”
The Cougars didn’t take long to impress the first-year head coach and sent a statement out to the rest of the league at the MBL Novice Tournament two weeks ago. The tournament is designated for wrestlers who hadn’t yet competed in high school. CHS brought back 15 medals, had eight get into the finals and crowned three champions.
“I knew they were going to do OK at the first tournament, but I didn’t know they were going to do that good,” Lara said. “When it came time to compete they were disciplined, they were focused and they wrestled strong.”
As with any development of a program, there have been a few downs, in what has been a very positive progression thus far, Lara said.
The Cougars lost their second league dual meet of the season to Monterey, 55-21, on Wednesday night.
“We were holding our own but in some of the matches we were pinned in the last seconds,” Lara said. “But that’s just wrestling. They are the No. 1 team in the league. Even though we lost, they still wrestled really hard.”
