WRESTLING RISE ON THE
Jaguars team hard at work
The wrestling trophy case at Capital High School was a pretty dusty, lonely place — at least until last season.
That’s when the Jaguars pulled out a green, thirdplace finish at the state meet for the first trophy in school history.
Now coach Marcos Gallegos is aiming to make that a regular occurrence.
“It was the first time we ever placed in the state tournament, and we’re hoping we can go over there and finish as good or even better this year,” he said. “Bringing home some hardware was important. It meant a lot for the program, and it meant a lot to the kids, and it meant a lot to me as well. The program has been on the verge, so it was a big deal.”
Especially when considering where the program was when Gallegos came on board 13 years ago.
“When I think about where it was at when I started, we had about six kids in the program,” he said. “For me to see it up there with the Belens and Piedra Vistas and Los Lunases, it’s important to me. I always want the program to be up there with the quality wrestling schools ... . It’s good for the kids to see their hard work pay off.”
With the way the team is progressing this season, Gallegos has good reason to feel optimistic about continuing that trend at next month’s state meet.
The Jaguars have already captured the district championship with a sweep of Albuquerque Academy and Los Alamos on Wednesday. And, over the weekend, Capital won the Al Salazar Invitational at St. Michael’s, coupled with a dual meet victory over powerhouse Belen last week.
“For me, I always want my guys to continue to get better week by week,” Gallegos said. “Not just win, but improve on their wrestling.”
Adding the district crown was another important milestone, he said.
“The big one, really, is we want to be district champion,” Gallegos said. “We wanted to have three straight district champions. It’s important to the guys.”
Seniors José Tapia — who is trying to become a rare five-time state champion — and Alex Wisdom lead a group that is otherwise fairly young.
“We’re still kind of a young team,” Gallegos said. “Right now, in varsity, we have the two seniors, three juniors, and the rest are freshmen and sophomores. We’re returning five state placers from last year. They’re great kids, and we also have some kids coming in and stepping up.”
But having leaders and returning individual state champions like Tapia, Wisdom and Ryan Romero is key to the team’s improvement, Gallegos said.
“Those seniors are real leaders; they lead by example,” he said.
And Tapia’s record gives him instant cred with his teammates. Only six other wrestlers in any class have earned five state titles and he’s lost only four matches during his high school career. Two of those were assessed for not making weight and another one came as an eighth-grader for unnecessary roughness in a match that he was dominating, Gallegos said.
“He’s definitely a team leader,” he said. “He’s not necessarily a vocal leader. He leads by example. He does the work and pushes kids physically on the mat. He takes pride in his wrestling and getting better every match.”
Tapia, who carries a grade-point average of about 3.5, is getting looks from some of the top wrestling programs in the country, Gallegos said.