Since the second week of summer vacation, Diamond Bar High School’s varsity wrestling team has been undergoing their infamously difficult conditioning for the upcoming season. With daily three-hour practices, the team has been focused largely on combining conditioning and teamwork to find greater success this season.

The team is training under new head coach Les Schaefer. He is bringing his experience from 10 years of coaching to the team.

“I’m enjoying it a lot because I’ve done the head coach where I’m the only one in charge but now if there are issues I know that I’ve got other coaches that are running practice for me and I can take care of those things,” Schaefer said.

According to Schaefer, the difficulty of their conditioning has stopped students from joining wrestling, or caused others to drop out. Even then, those who push through see large benefits.

“We definitely have a very strong focus on conditioning this year. The more conditioned they are, the more successful they can be as a wrestler. They’re not thinking about how tired they are because they’re not as tired. They can be focused on what they’re doing,” Schaefer said.

The boys begin conditioning on the football field as they perform buddy and fireman carries and run bleachers and timed miles. Afterwards, the Brahmas spend an hour and a half solely on wrestling. Aside from the usual techniques, the team is focusing specifically on finishing their matches quickly through pins.

While technical skills are crucial, so is teamwork. Team captain and four-year varsity member senior Adam Salvosa said he believes one of the major weaknesses of last year’s team was a lack of camaraderie. As he brings the team closer to their goal of making CIF this year, he also hopes to foster a team spirit.

“My hope is just for the team itself to work better as a unit and to have the loving community that we used to, instead of being aggressive towards one another,” Salvosa said.

Schaefer has also been actively working on team building. He said he is trying to bridge the gap between experienced wrestlers and those who may need more help by encouraging the more skilled wrestlers to train alongside their inexperienced teammates.

Both Schaefer and Salvosa cite the talent of many of the younger members on the team and the team’s hard work in training as a sign of their future success. At the Carter High School Tourney on Dec. 2, four juniors placed in the top ten: Dylan Wong placed 8th, Moises Gamez placed 4th, Conner Diamond placed 6th and Andrew Cardiel placed 6th.

“Each wrestler has their own goals, and we’re there to support their goals. As a whole, the big thing is that we’ve seen the growth of condition, and they’re definitely ready for [the tourney.] They’re hungry for competition, ready to compete, and ready to have fun competing,” Schaefer said.