Tokay’s Nguyen enjoying benefits of hard work
Accomplishments: Jonathan Nguyen is finding out that extreme hard work is paying off.
The Tokay High wrestler, a junior who competes in the 108pound class, took second place at the Tim Brown Memorial Wrestling Tournament in Sacramento on Jan. 11.
“It was really tough,” Nguyen said.
In the championship match, Nguyen, who is 14-5 this season, faced Oakdale’s Michael Torres, who is ranked fifth in California. This was their second meeting of the season; they faced each other at the Riddle Tournament at Oakdale High. Torres
pinned Nguyen, who has been competing on the varsity level since his freshman year, in the second round. The Oakdale wrestler led 2-0 before he won by pin.
“We set our goals to be realistic,” Nguyen said. “Rather than winning, just score points.”
Before competing at that tournament in the state capital, Nguyen, who moved up to the 113-pound class, posted an 11-7 decision over Robert Lopez in a Tri-City Athletic League dual meet against West at The Jungle on Jan. 8. Nguyen jumped out to a 7-2 lead that increased to 9-3. Lopez outscored Nguyen 4-2 in the third round.
One of his moves that he wanted to clean up entering this season that Nguyen has become better is the front head lock move, which is where a wrestler puts his arms around his opponent who is already or close to being on his knees.
“It was just one of the moves that we had to fix in order to be successful,” Nguyen said.
Nguyen missed most of the high school wrestling season last winter because of injuries. He came back toward the end of the regular season and advanced into post-season for Tokay. But he knew that off-season workouts to become stronger and faster this season — a challenge that he gladly accepted.
“Pretty much training every where we went, even on vacation,” Nguyen said. “At the beach, bring something to work out there.”
That included a running up hills with weight bags.
“We went to the beach on several occasions,” Nguyen said. “We’d do a lot of high-intensity workouts.”
Nguyen also competed in folkstyle wrestling, which is the same format used mostly by high schools and colleges in America. Nguyen also competed at wrestling camps and also worked out at Central Catholic High of Modesto. On top of that, he had workouts at various beaches in California.
“It’s not easy and that the road to success will have its own ups and downs,” Nguyen said. “I constantly make sure to stay in shape and get my exercise in even on my days off. Over the summer I had to push cars, power lift at the gym and run up and down steep hills. I do agility workouts every weekend.
Nguyen thanks John Ellis, who works at In-Shape Health Club in Stockton, and coach Logan Lazaro for helping him get into better shape.
“I went to several rough offseason tournaments over the summer, each of which helped develop me into the wrestler I’ve become. After (the high school) season ended last year, my coach Logan and I had set our goal to wrestle in 40 matches over the summer, which we did.”
Nguyen started wrestling in eighth grade. He became interested in the sport because Nicholas, one of his brothers, was involved in the sport.