Wrestling Bonds People Together Or Throw Them Down

2021, girls’ wrestling is making its way this year with Coach Machado by their side. Coach Machado has spent twenty year’s coaching, with six of those years at Ridgeview. “ I coached football and baseball previously. I believe I can help more kids through wrestling. No sideline.” Stand out returners include seniors Monique Bravo and Maliya Castillo. 

“ We’re all kind of like family since we’ve been through it together so, it’s good,” claims Bravo.  Bravo had joined wrestling her freshman year and has made the decision to do it once again for her last time.

Not only is it a lot of physical strength that is required to endure this sport but it would seem mentality plays a role just as big. Castillo, “ If you have bad mentality in like thinking that you’re never going to get any better then you probably won’t ever get better, cause like wrestling takes a while to  actually learn it cause there’s so many different things that you could be doing, and sometimes you’ll learn something that doesn’t work for you, and then the last thing that you learn actually does work for you so it takes time and you have to have a good mindset.”

Bravo also has an opinion, “If you think you can’t do it, you’re not going to be able to, you have to believe in yourself.” With the mindset the girls’ wrestling team has, it is no wonder they have the chemistry that they have. According to Castillo, there seems to be much more to the bond of the wrestling team than meets the eye. “ It’s like people don’t think wrestling teams are like bonding because when you compete you compete separately but when you like practice altogether you build relationships because you’re with the same people every single day, doing the same thing.” It is not only the bond of the team that brings these young ladies together, but their determination and hustle to keep chasing after the same achievements for this year’s wrestling.