By: Xavier Moimoi
As the final whistle blows, it’s not just the end of a high school wrestling season, but also the end of hard work, dedication, and growth. For some of the people on the team it’ll be the last time they ever step foot on the wrestling mat, but for others, it’ll be just the beginning. O’Dea’s high school wrestling team ended the season with their head held high, as they had a very successful season.
O’Dea had seven wrestlers qualify for state and one of the seven Vinh Nguyen placed 6th as the only one to place. Nguyen also won the Most Outstanding Wrestling award for the Metro League.
Even though one individual might stick out to the rest, this doesn’t take away from all the hard work the rest of the wrestlers put in every day. From early hours before school started to late hours after school ended.
The wrestling team was led by captains Riley Alley, Chris Ceja, Vinh Nguyen, Hamilton Wisen, Xavier Johnson-Mitchell, and Janio Molieri.
All captains made sure that everyone on the team was giving it their all. The captains were the ones who held the wrestling team together through positive and negative times.
Alley states, “I think as a team we started very slow and undisciplined.”
Explaining how in the beginning they weren’t all on the same page. But then eventually came together and built some strong relationships with others. This is all thanks to the upperclassmen of the team taking on the role of bringing everyone together.
This is the beginning of something special as O’Dea had a very young team as well.
Alley states, “Our team was super young this year with tons of freshmen coming out and competing, some of them going straight into the varsity lineup.”
This goes on to show you that O’Dea will be in good hands for the next couple of years. But with the coach they have O’Dea will be set for a long time.
O’Dea’s Head Coach Joseph Balinbin played a major part in building that foundation for O’Dea. This wasn’t the first time Coach Balinbin had taken a trip down to state. Over the years coach Balinbin has had multiple state appearances and had some success with winning state too. So, you could say this is nothing new to Balinbin.
With his experience and the young athletes O’Dea has, don’t be surprised when they take another state championship back home.
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