The nine La Jolla High wrestlers gorged on make-your-own burritos, stuffing fresh tortillas with steak and chicken, garnishing with guacamole and salsa.
Then, the travelers from 125 miles away—nine of a whopping total of 355 high school grapplers, 195 of whom were housed overnight by host families—sacked out on couches and inflatable mattresses in the living room to rest up for the second day of competition.
The occasion was the 54th Holtville Rotary Invitational, an annual tournament drawing wrestlers from 33 different schools, including some in Arizona, held on the last weekend in January.
“They (our host family) had fresh tortillas,” said senior Griffin Young, a 140-pounder. Were the tortillas homemade? “I don’t know. They were still warm.”
“They had six kids in the family. One is a wrestler at Holtville High, a 220-pounder.”
Said teammate Joshua Jasso, an 184-pound freshman making his first trek to the El Centro area tourney, in all seriousness, “I didn’t eat that much. I don’t like to. (Teammate) Elliot Austin played video games with the little kids in the family.”
By then, Young and Jasso were chowing down on another meal, this time assemble-your-own sandwiches at a lunch table on the campus quad, courtesy of Walter Fairley, Jr., a former administrator at La Jolla High and long-time coach in the sport he loves. Austin, who wrestles at 128 pounds, wasn’t partaking because he still had matches left in the consolation bracket of the two-day competition.
“I won,” said the slight Austin, of the “Call of Duty” video game in which he beat the 11-year-old in their host family.
“Wrestling is a brotherhood that stays together,” said Fairley, who makes the annual trek over the Mount Laguna pass to support the Viking grapplers and to renew relationships with many of the fellow coaches he has befriended over the years. “All the things the kids learned outside, they have to leave aside.” He and first-year La Jolla assistant coach Chuck Pieritz agreed that wrestling is a sport “that doesn’t change,”there are no shortcuts to succeeding in it. It still requires old-fashioned hard work, and it can humble a young student athlete who has high hopes.
Pieritz, a recent transplant from his native Illinois to help a roommate prepare for a mixed martial arts bout, said in stark language, “We need wrestling more than ever.” He was referring to the order and structure of the sport he competed in high school and college, the demand for dedication to learning specific skills. He added: “A young person needs accountability more than anything else,” something he says a high school wrestling program provides.
Austin, who benefits from the quickness his training in karate provides, went on through the consolation bracket due to a loss the first day to the third-place match Saturday night, which he lost. He still accomplished a fine fourth-place finish in the tournament. The top six in each weight class are considered worthy of listing in the records that are included in the program for each year’s event.
Head coach Kellen Delaney, when asked about Austin’s chances earlier in the invitational, had said, “He’s good. But he’ll face some studs in this tournament.”
Elliot’s teammates all had their chances in the championship bracket on day one, then slipped into the so-called Hard Luck Bracket on day two, which matches those suffering two losses and elimination from the competitive bracket. In that way, all wrestlers are guaranteed four matches over the two days.
Besides Young and Jasso, Vikings going this route included freshman Isaiah Torres, who began the second day still in the championship bracket at 197 pounds; Brocke Bonnette, a sophomore at 154; junior Austin Clerget, 147; senior Finley Chen, 108; Hunter Gilbert, freshman, 184; and Jose “Burrito” Sotelo, senior, 287.
On a humorous note, Delaney said, “I didn’t even know ‘Burrito’s’ real name until (partway through this season).” Such are the challenges of a program that is going through growing pains four years after now-assistant JV coach Harry Wilson, Timmy Cundiff, and other seniors who won the Western League title in 2013 graduated and moved on.
In December, largely due to the efforts of coach Ryan Lindenblatt, 30 students new to wrestling (mostly freshmen and sophomores) packed the tiny La Jolla High wrestling room on campus, drawn by the promise of physical challenge and the opportunity to build themselves up mentally, as well as physically, in a sport they had never tried.
Gilbert, the 134-pounder, Jasso, at 184, and Torres, at 197, are all freshmen who came in with that big wave.
What that has meant is the instruction and team-building that Delaney, Lindenblatt, and the other coaches relish. But it also means propping up a lot of young teenagers through the morass of repeated losses, as well as aiding them in the other challenges that life these days will throw 14-and 15-year-olds, everything from relationships, homework, to social media, besides the injuries and skin problems that can come in wrestling.