On Wednesday, January 17 2024, Irvington’s wrestling team held its senior night to commemorate the efforts and dedication of the wrestling team’s seniors. Despite the many challenges the team has faced in the past, the seniors still remained committed to the wrestling team, leading consistent improvement throughout the year. Senior night included not just wrestling matches against Mission San Jose High School, but also speeches from the wrestlers’ families about their experience with wrestling. The seniors did excellent in wrestling as well, with the varsity team winning almost all their matches.
Senior night was a night full of emotions for all the wrestlers, with it marking the close to the senior’s involvement with Irvington wrestling. Many of the underclassmen wrestlers looked up to the Seniors, turning to them for inspiration or guidance not only for wrestling but also life in general.
“It was just the realization that this was going to be my last year here at Irvington,” said Luis Ramirez (12), a senior who had been wrestling with Irvington for years, “It was pretty sad knowing that I was going to see these people and just wrestle here at Irvington for pretty much the last time.”
The emotions in the air were complemented by the family speeches, where parents and family members of wrestlers each gave a speech about each wrestler’s involvement and experience in wrestling. For many seniors, this was the highlight of the evening.
“One thing that stood out to me during the speeches was the parents talking about how much the wrestlers had grown,” said Gurtej Deol (12), another senior wrestler, “and it showed how much support the parents gave to the wrestlers and how important it was.”
Equally as important were the coaches’ contributions to the team. In the past few years, Irvington’s wrestling team has been through more than its fair share of coaches. Ivan Morales and Peter Denyer, the current coaches of the wrestling team, completed their first full year coaching at Irvington. Therefore, this year was a learning experience for not only the players but also the coaches.
“The coaches are definitely trying to the best of their abilities,” said Vincent Le (11), whose sentiment was shared by much of the team, “and I appreciate them for dedicating part of their day to help us learn how to wrestle and be there for us.”
Despite many of the challenges Irvington wrestling has faced, with the team being disbanded last year, and a new set of coaches for this year, Irvington has persevered through these challenges. Wrestling is an incredibly difficult sport, among the hardest ones at Irvington, so even being able to be competitive is impressive.
“Honestly, this year has gone so much better than expected,” said Luis, surprised at how well Irvington wrestling has been doing after restarting the wrestling program, “We have wrestlers who want to wrestle, and with a few more years under our belt, our wrestling program will be pretty good.”
We have still made drastic improvements, are are able to remain competitive, winning almost all of the Varsity matches, and most of the JV matches against Mission, an exciting way to end the high school wrestling career for our seniors.
“I feel like as a school that mainly focuses on academics and not really into wrestling,we are not doing too bad,” said Shane Takara (11), also impressed by the performance of the seniors. “Our coaches are trying their best, and we’re able to run wrestling in high school, which is what really matters.”
