Mendez’s triple crown
With three state titles, Crown Point junior has chance to match three Northwest Indiana greats
Crown Point junior Jesse Mendez is on the verge of an achievement for the Indiana history books.
After winning a third state championship in February, Mendez, the 2020-21 Post-Tribune Wrestler of the Year, is one state title away from meeting his stated career goal of a perfect 4-for-4 run.
Nine Indiana wrestlers have done it. New Palestine’s Chad Red was the most recent in 2016.
The three wrestlers who immediately preceded Red down that road all trace back to Lake County: 2004 Griffith graduate Alex Tsirtsis, 2005 Griffith graduate Angel Escobedo and 2012 Crown Point graduate Jason Tsirtsis.
With those three now in coaching roles, they offered a unique perspective on the ground Mendez already has covered and what’s in store for his final season.
Jason Tsirtsis was a national champion at Northwestern in 2014, later wrestled at Arizona State and joined the Indiana coaching staff as a volunteer assistant. He pointed out the first few state titles tend to be the more difficult ones.
“Once you get to your junior and senior years, a lot of guys run away from you,” he said. “Now that I’ve been a coach for a bit and I’ve thought back to where my mindset was, I felt pressure getting that second one because you’re still an underclassman and there are competitive guys who are still in your weight class.”
The word “pressure” came up several times, although Alex Tsirtsis — Jason’s older brother, a former All-American at Iowa and the coach at Mount Carmel in Chicago — said having goals beyond individual success can help with that.
“There is pressure, but I don’t think it’s an unhealthy one,” he said. “One thing we all had going is that we had good partners and a good team. It wasn’t always just about us. I
think that alleviates some of the pressure.”
Jason Tsirtsis won a team state title with Crown Point in 2009. Alex Tsirtsis and Escobedo helped Griffith finish second in 2003. Mendez is in a similar situation in a competitive Crown Point program that placed fourth at the state meet this season and was the runner-up in 2020.
For Escobedo, the head coach at Indiana after winning a national title for the Hoosiers in 2008, chasing team success eventually guided his individual progress.
“In my senior year, I was so focused on everyone around me,” he said. “I was trying to make them better so we could all have that accomplishment of making it to state together.”
The focus on those daily practices and weekend tournaments left little time for reflection during the season. But Escobedo said he still remembers the feeling of having his hand raised for the fourth time in front of a massive crowd.
“They gave me a standing ovation, which I still remember to this day,” he said. “I probably enjoyed that moment the most, realizing how impactful our wrestling careers were to the state.”
Jason Tsirtsis agreed, adding: “Once you get to that state finals match and win is definitely when you relish it the most.”
With all three still involved in the sport, they’re aware of the legacies left behind once careers end. And Alex Tsirtsis said he took special pride in the part of his legacy that serves as an example for wrestlers like Mendez, who grew up in the same area with the same lofty goals.
“It’s giving them some sort of direction in the sport, that they can do what we did,” Tsirtsis said. “Northwest Indiana has had a lot of studs coming through, and we can be proud in saying that these kids probably believe in themselves a little bit more because we were able to do it in the recent past.”