Wrestlers expect to pin a position at CIF
WRESTLING Moving away from conditioning, the Brahmas are prioritizing technique to finish strong.
Senior Christopher Perez won his 152 weight class match against Montclair.
Moving away from its summer training methods, Diamond Bar High School’s wrestling team is focusing on improving technique that they hope will push them to CIF.
“Right now we are doing a lot more technical work along with situational wrestling,” coach Andre Bonafe said via email. “This is the point of the season where the most improvement will be made.”
After the first match against Walnut High School ended in a tie, the team defeated Ontario High School 58-24 and Chaffey High School 52-29. Last Thursday, the Brahmas were defeated by Montclair High School, 44-36.
With CIF around the corner, Banafe said he believed that athletes such as senior captain Connor Diamond will have a breakthrough later this season.
“Connor Diamond is expected to do well,” Bonafe said. “He has earned a spot in the state rankings as an honorable mention, which soon will become an actual ranking if he keeps doing what he’s been doing.”
Despite the team being male-dominated, girls such as sophomore Claudia Gomez continue to contribute to the team. Gomez carries a 3-4 individual record this season.
“This year the girls haven’t been doing the best, we all lost our matches against Walnut. We are going to a tournament for girls [only] where we are going to do better,” Gomez said via Instagram.
The all-girl match took place Jan. 18-19 at Ayala High School, where Gomez and junior Sooyeon Eun each posted 4 wins and 1 loss on the first day. That qualified them for the second day of the tournament, ending with Eun in sixth place and Gomez in seventh.
Now in mid-season, the team is practicing more form work along with wrestling situation techniques, instead of the large amount of cardio they did at the beginning of the season. Along with Diamond, senior Andrew Cardiel and junior Dylan Wong round out the leadership on the team.
The team’s final league match is on Feb. 2 against Don Lugo High School.
“We definitely will have multiple people going to CIF. I also expect to have few break through to the CIF Masters tournament.” Bonafe said in an interview at the beginning of the season. “We have some hopefuls for CIF State tournament too, so I’m excited and want to push my team to make sure these things happen.”
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