Hornets’ fledgling wrestling program grows up fast
CALIPATRIA — At just 2 years old, the Calipatria High School wrestling program is still be a little green in the gills. It has no rich history to draw from, no sturdy scaffolding of institutional memory to prop it up.
And yet, the Hornets seem to be thriving for all their relative youth and inexperience, looking fully ambulatory as they dispatched all comers in an exhausting series of same-day duals en route to their second straight Citrus League championship here last Thursday.
From 3 to 10 p.m., there was no end to the wrestling. The Hornets went up against Coastal Academy and won 66-12. Then they locked horns with Army-Navy and prevailed 54-24, before beating Mt. Empire by the same score and routing Guajome Park Academy, 79-24.
Rafael Velasco (at 108 pounds), Pedro Jackson (122), Zachary Leal (128), Jonathan Valenzuela (147), Jamison Ange (197) and Julio Escobar (285), were all individual league champs. None of them dropped a single match over the course of the night.
Program architect Keith Smith — whose expertise has been integral to the Hornets instant success — knows a thing or two about repeat championships, having cut his teeth as steward of the fabled Brawley Wildcats. He indicated that taking this year’s Citrus crown was marginally more difficult than winning last year’s.
The reason being: After the upstart Hornets showed up out of nowhere fielding wrestlers at every weight class in 201819, their conference foes realized they couldn’t afford to give up so many points via walkover and decided to fill out their own ranks for 2019-20.
But even with other schools actively trying to step to Calipat, none could match the Hornets’ stride.
High student-body enthusiasm buoys the young team. Per Coach Smith there are currently 23 boys and 11 girls wresting for the school — nearly a full tenth of CHS enrollees. Proportionally speaking, that’s roughly equivalent to 300 kids wrestling for Calexico High.
When it comes to on the mat technique, many Hornets are still quite raw, which is why Smith stresses defensive wrestling techniques and conditioning in practice.
“Takedowns are very hard to learn and teach,” he said, “So we try to stay on our feet and counterattack. We win a lot of matches in the third period.”
A junior wrestling program has sprung up in tandem with the high school team. It’s not as robust as those to be found in Brawley or Imperial, but there are still “eight or nine” youngsters who could help cement wrestling in the CHS firmament somewhere down the line.
Before any of that happens the Hornets have to finish out this season.
They wrestle (along Holtville and Imperial) at the CIF-SDS Division IV finals at Carlsbad High School on Saturday.
BY AARON BODUS Sports Editor