More Experienced Wrestlers Seeking Championships
By Brandon Huang, Staff Writer
With ten of last year’s wrestlers returning, Galileo wrestling, which started on October 13, is in good position to take all city championships this year. Last year they took second place in all city with an inexperienced team of fifteen beginners, but this year are prepared to win city championships because they are tougher mentally and physically stronger from all the training they went through during off season.
For Galileo wrestling, last year was a year to learn how to wrestle and get used to the basic techniques, such as learning how to take the opponent down and how to escape from their grip. But now this year, with the help of second year coach Allen Loretz, the wrestlers will learn a lot more advanced techniques, like different pinning combinations. He plans to get the team ready by bringing them to tougher tournaments outside of the city, where they will face some of the best wrestlers in the state. Coach Loretz says, “This year is all about making these guys mentally tough, and ready to go out on the mat and win.”
Coach Loretz decided to teach the wrestlers more advanced techniques after seeing how last year’s team surprised him by working hard to take second for all city even with an inexperienced team. This year his goals are much higher. Coach Loretz says, “This year my goals are to make everyone of these wrestlers champions.”
Coach Loretz will also rely on the help of senior captains Jimmy Zhen and Juan Santa Maria to be prepared to face their rival schools Washington and Mission. Jimmy Zhen says, “I want to beat Washington this year because they have been the dominant school in the past.”
As captains, their responsibilities are to help their teammates learn the wrestling techniques and to teach them how to use it properly in wrestling matches. The captains also make sure their teammates are focused and working hard during practice. Senior Juan Santa Maria says, “I want to make sure everyone is on task and to make sure they’re motivated to practice.”
Although the captains are tough on their teammates during practice, they are a lot nicer outside of the wrestling mats. Everyone on the team is very supportive to their fellow wrestlers and they help them out with their school work and sometimes hang out with each other outside of school. Junior Jonathan Wei says, “Since I’ve joined the wrestling team, I’ve come to meet a lot of cool people and became good friends with them.”
However the team is not perfect; one weakness they have is that some of the new wrestlers who have joined this year are not as dedicated as the returning ones. To eliminate this weakness, captains are going to teach them that wrestling is not an easy sport and that they must be dedicated if they wanted to be a good wrestler. Although some wrestlers are not as committed as others, most of the team is well conditioned from the training they had on their own during summer.
This year all the wrestlers are looking well fit and injury free making them able to wrestle every match unlike last year, where they had to forfeit some matches because of their ankle injuries. Now Galileo is ready to win, and ready to prove that they’re going to be this year’s city champions.
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