Budding wrestling team gains experience through tournaments, dual meets and college visits

Though seven out of nine wrestlers are new to wrestling, the team has shown considerable growth.

As her opponent went for a single-leg shot, junior co-captain Rebecca Bossow caught her overextended arm with a “cowcatcher” move, flipping her opponent onto their back and winning the match with a pin. Just two meets ago, she found herself in a similar situation, but failed to capitalize on her opponent’s sloppy shot, ultimately getting taken down.

In the time span of two weeks, through film review and more individualized practices, wrestlers like Bossow have made large improvements to their defensive and offensive capabilities.

Wrestlers say the team’s 0-4 record as of Jan. 26 is not representative of the stronger individual performances — they were forced to forfeit matches in weight-classes they did not have on their team.

With seven out of the nine wrestlers this year competing for the first time, head coach Bianca Adams has been pushing for more participation in tournaments, which aren’t counted on the school record but offer a great opportunity to compete and improve skills.

On Jan. 19, the four varsity members — Bossow, junior co-captain Keion Ashjaee-Marshall and seniors David Baek and Aiden Ye — participated in the 2024 MidCals tournament, the most competitive high school tournament in Northern California. Bossow, in the top 16, advanced to the second day of the tournament but could not attend due to scheduling conflicts.

Following each competition, the team gathers to review recordings of their most recent matches. The coaches provide detailed breakdowns of missed opportunities or better methods to deal with various wrestling positions through live demonstrations.

“Watching film is good because when you’re in the moment, you don’t notice all of your mistakes or the opportunities you missed out upon,” sophomore Jayden Kwong said. “Getting the coach’s feedback helps me find things that I left out on the table that I can capitalize on next time.”

In order to show the team more strategies, Adams took the team to watch a college wrestling competition between Stanford and the University of Missouri on Jan. 10.

“I learned a lot seeing how higher level wrestlers approach difficult situations — they’re very calm and use their technique a lot more than relying on being stronger than their opponent,” Kwong said. “It was also exciting to see them execute some of the moves we had been drilling in practice.”

With SCVALS occurring soon in early February, he said the entire team has improved finishing and defending shots this season.

“I think we might have a better feel for the other teams in our league compared to the first time we wrestled against them,” Kwong said. “We’ll be more prepared and ready to go.”