Wrestling competes with a small team
Wrestling succeeds in tournaments despite losing members in the preseason.
Although the team hasn’t competed in league matches yet this season, Diamond Bar wrestling has already captured many individual victories in competitive tournaments.
“Since we don’t have the largest team, we can’t compete in the team category,” junior Gabriel Martinez said. “So, all we can do is compete individually in hard tournaments to get better.”
The Brahmas have already competed in the Tournament of Champions, Brea tournament, Man Classic, Connor Classic and Mater Dei tournament. At the competitions, wrestlers competed in seven matches over the course of a couple days and had marquee matchups against stronger teams such as Poway, a top-ranked school in California that has gone to compete at the state level multiple years in a row.
As of late, Diamond Bar was unable to reach the podium at the Tournament of Champions, but the wrestlers have learned a lot from their experiences throughout the matches.
“We went up against very good teams so that was a highlight in itself,” Martinez said. “It [Tournament of Champions] tested our skills and allowed us to get better.”
Before league begins, the Brahmas need to address the scarcity of participants on their squad, since there are only twenty members combined on the varsity and junior varsity rosters. Without new teammates, the Brahmas will struggle to produce wins against league competition.
“Right now, our biggest weakness is numbers because it’s basically impossible for us to win a dual meet,” Martinez said. “We can’t get the points because we are already going to lose points with not having people to wrestle the other team in the first place.”
Diamond Bar initially had 40 members on the team; by the end of training camp, 15 participants had quit. Now, the team is focused on recruiting more members. The Brahmas are mostly looking for students to compete in higher weight classes, a key element Diamond Bar has lacked for the past few seasons.
“I understand that our practices are really intense and a lot of people can’t handle the intensity, but we need people to help our team achieve our goal because we can’t reach them with the little people we have,” Martinez said.
Your donation will support the student journalists of Diamond Bar High School. Your contribution will allow us to purchase equipment and cover our annual website hosting costs.
