At the Southern Section Wrestling Masters tournament over the weekend of March 1, Pioneer Valley High School showed up with five wrestlers and one alternate. It’s the best showing the school’s had at the tournament in the history of its program.
“This is the most that we’ve ever sent,” said assistant coach Todd Noel. “Our room is really competitive, and the kids are really competitive with themselves. Having guys in the room who really push you and they’re not going through the motions. It’s as hard as we can go, every single day.”
Although none of the wrestlers advanced to state, and Pioneer Valley fell short of taking league or CIF titles this year, the Panthers got their chance to grapple ferociously with some of the best high school wrestlers in California.
“We just had every match at this tournament be really close matches because everybody is at a really high level of wrestling,” Noel said. “Every match that our guys wrestled were one point wins and two point wins. Hard work and hard to get. Scrappy, hard-fought matches. By the end of the tournament they had black eyes, scrapes on their faces, banged up.”
One wrestler, junior Roman Garcia, fought six hard matches in two days. He won three in overtime.
“Really grinding out, tough kid, got far in the tournament,” Noel recalled. “He made it to the middle matches to place and fell short by losing to a tough kid. Then he wrestled in a small bracket to take the ninth-place spot.”
Head Coach Kevin Ilac sees Garcia’s strength as rooted in his single-minded drive.
“The No. 1 thing about Roman is his desire to make himself the very best athlete he can be,” Ilac said. “It’s not that he has the best technique in the world, but he’s driven to be the best athlete so he pushes himself to be the best athlete he can be.”
The summer after his sophomore year, Garcia and a friend raised $2,000 by selling candy bars and hosting a barbecue to travel to a 10-day summer wrestling camp in the humid cornfields of Iowa. He trained long days with famous wrestlers such as Tony Ramos and Sam Bradford.
“That camp just kills,” Garcia said. “They really push you to your limits. All you do is work out every day, eat, and sleep. That’s all there’s time for.”
Ilac said most of the kids wrestling for Pioneer will only go to camps at Cal Poly or somewhere they can drive to.
“Roman said I want to learn from the best. I think with that and his desire to be leader, it pushes him to be the best athlete he can be,” Ilac said.
Christian Ayala, another standout from the Panther delegation that went to the masters tournament, is a 220-pound heavyweight who strikes a contrast to the lithe, 140-pound Garcia. Ayala scrapped his way to the quarterfinals before losing a close match.
Whereas Garcia has speed and strength, Ayala is a cerebral, patient wrestler with a slow-burning style.
“He knows how to manage his matches well and wrestles really smart,” assistant coach Noel said. “He’s very stingy with his points. He knows where he’s at on the mat. He’s a defensive wrestler who really waits for the other person to attack him, and he counters. A lot of kids don’t understand that about wrestling. That’s what separates Christian from other wrestlers is how well he manages his matches.”
According to Ilac, the two are distinct because their weight classes lend them to different styles.
“Christian is more of a grinding match guy; those guys don’t really shoot or they’re not as explosive so it’s more of a grudge match,” he explained. “Roman’s will be more of a dance. They’re both comparable wrestlers, but they have to wrestle different styles because of their weight classes.”
The PVHS wrestling program has upped its game in part because of the addition of Noel, who brought with him experience that raises the bar for the team.
“His background with technique helped elevate these guys up a little bit more than where I was teaching them,” Ilac said. “That college wrestling background. That coupled with having two people in the room that could switch off coaching-wise. Todd was the lynchpin of us boosting our technique in our level.”
Garcia, who has only been wrestling for three years, is glad for the help with his game.
“I didn’t know anything about wrestling coming into the sport. They’ve pushed me to be better conditioned, stronger, and they’ve taught me a lot about the sport,” he said. “When I wrestle, I lean a lot on my athleticism because I lack technique, so I use my strength and use basic moves that I’ve practiced a lot. I go really hard in the beginning, try and tire them out, and we just see who breaks first,” Garcia said.
That kind of growth, Ilac said, is one of the most valuable things about wrestling.
“What I like most about wrestling is the life skills,” he said with conviction. “Everything it prepares you for, the challenges that lie ahead. What I love about wrestling is the individualistic part of it. Nobody’s going to go out there and help you. If you want something to change, you have to get out there and make that happen.”
Contact Staff Writer Sean McNulty at smcnulty@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Mar 5-12, 2015.
