St. Mike’s Baca advances to state semifinals
Senior grappler, once full of questions about sport, hopes to have answers in today’s semifinal matchup
WRIO RANCHO hen Sam Baca stops, people pay attention.
Baca, a senior 152-pound wrestler for St. Michael’s, normally is a body in constant motion on the wrestling mat, but for one long moment in his Class 1A-4A quarterfinal match in the Santa Ana Star Center against Tucumcari’s Simon Ortiz, Baca paused as Ortiz tried to take him down in the third period. The referee gave Baca a stalling warning, but he soon reverted back to his nonstop self.
Horsemen head coach Tommy Trujillo took note of Baca’s inaction, even though it didn’t prevent Baca, the second seed in the bracket, from prevailing by a 9-5 count to advance to a semifinal matchup against Elijah Wildenstein of Moriarty at 9 a.m. Saturday.
“That’s never happened,” Trujillo said. “I’ve never seen him get a stalling call. I asked him, ‘What happened?’ And he said, ‘I think I ate too much [before the match].’ Then, I was like, ‘Oh, OK. So we’re good, right?’ And he was.”
And for once, the teacher was asking the student a question. Usually, it’s the other way around for Baca. It’s his thirst for knowledge and to master skills that drives his queries. It just so happens that Baca, when he was younger, found himself asking questions to referees during wrestling matches.
“Sometimes, I think he gets a little analytical out there, and he’d talk to refs,” Trujillo said. “‘What about this?’
‘Why didn’t you call that?’ ‘He’s doing this.’ And we’d tell Sam to just wrestle. The refs would tell us, ‘You need to talk to Sam and tell him he can’t be talking to us.’ I mean, they already knew him by his first name.”
But Baca’s mind is always in the driver’s seat. He’s a threetime state chess champion who will compete for St. Michael’s in the state championships in two weeks. He was an All-District 2-1A/4A second-team defender as a sophomore for the soccer team before moving to the midfield as a senior. He competed in track and field last spring, and said he is considering joining the golf team this year.
Baca will go to New Mexico Tech in the fall to study biomedical and mechanical engineering and plans on making prosthetic limbs and joints. To that end, Baca is taking two calculus classes to prepare him for that next step in his evolution.
“My parents have always been a big influence in getting me to do a lot of things,” Baca said. “I’ll get bored with a sport. I mean, I’ll do a sport and think, ‘Hey, this is awesome.’ I’ll train hard and then I’ll conquer something, and then I’ll be like, ‘OK, what’s next?’ ”
Perhaps it’s why he’s still at it on the wrestling mat. Baca did wrestle on occasion growing up, but he didn’t dedicate himself to the sport until he joined the varsity program as an eighth-grader. His climb has been steady, but he didn’t reach the podium until last year when he took third place at 145 pounds.
Like any good student, Baca sidled up to the likes of former teammates Geno Palermo and Xavier Vigil, who combined for four individual titles. He also spent time in the wrestling room of the Tapia family, which has developed state champions seven times over in Jose and Javier Tapia.
What better classroom could a wrestler want?
Baca said that he feels like he’s in shape, thanks to his soccer training as well as his swimming workouts in the pool. He admits, however, that he finds his conditioning lacking with the likes of the Tapias.
“Javier puts me to shame in conditioning,” Baca said. “In the St. Mike’s wrestling room, I’m the best conditioned one there. We do our three-man rolls, I’m the one pushing everybody. Then, I go to the Tapias, and it’s like, ‘Come on, Sam. Keepgoing.’ ”
All of that work, though, is paying off. Baca went 32-8 on the season; won the 145-pound title at his home meet, the Al Salazar Memorial Invitational; and took the District 2/5 1A-4A title at 152, pinning Ortiz in the process. However, Baca is now dealing with a new sensation: expectations.
Baca said he has talked with numerous coaches and current and former wrestlers who wish him well, with the caveat that they want to see him in Saturday evening’s finals.
Vigil, who plays football at UNM, texted him Thursday night to wish him luck and remind him that he is the last link to the St. Michael’s wrestling lore because he wrestled with Vigil, Palermo, Koery Windham and Luke Sanchez.
That quartet combined for 11 titles during their careers.
“He mentioned that I am a last of a dying breed,” Baca said. “I really am the last one from that group. Now, it’s such a small group — just six of us [at the state championships]. It’s just a crazy difference from my eighthgrade year when all of us made it.”
Baca hopes when he finally stops on the wrestling mat, people will pay attention then. It could mean he’s fulfilled a dream and joined his former teammates in an elite group.