After most of its team graduated, moved away or left the sport, the Mingus Union High School boys wrestling team is gearing up for a successful season.
With no seniors, only two juniors, and the rest of the 17-member boys team being freshmen or sophomores, the team is pretty new. The goal for this year is to get as much practice as possible at meets and tournaments.
“I added three more tournaments that we didn’t have last year,” Head Coach Michael Bux said. “We have the Mile High Challenge, Apache Junction Classic and then the West Valley Invitational.”
That brings the team’s number of events this season to 10. The match on Wednesday, Dec. 10, was the team’s second event of the year.
“I went 3-0,” Junior Xander Teel said during the team’s practice on Thursday, Dec. 11. “Now, the team, we had two kids on varsity, Sebas Hurtado [a sophomore]. He did really good. I think he went 2-1 yesterday. … We had three other teams.
Coconino was a big one there.”
The meet, hosted at Coconino, also had Estrada Foothills and Prescott high schools.
Teel said this is his fifth year wrestling. He first began because of his adoptive uncle, David Wilbur, who was on the MUHS team while he was in high school.
“He was a two-time state champ, David Wilbur,” Teel said. “So I was just hanging out the house one day, and he was like, ‘what sports are you doing?’ I was like, ‘I’m not doing anything,’ and he’s like, ‘you should get the wrestling on.’ I just loved it.”
Junior Isaiah Ortiz said he got in partially because of a family history as well, his stepfather.
“His name was James Paysano,” Ortiz said, pointing to a picture on the wall of wrestlers in the Wrestling Room. “He’s up there. Big Boy.”
Ortiz said he’s been involved in other sports like boxing, mixed martial arts and tae kwon do.
“I’ve always done combat sports my whole life, since I was maybe 5, 6 years old,” he said. “Wrestling just interested me, and my eighth grade teacher, actually, Mrs. Ackerman, she told me … ‘hey, I really think you would like wrestling. You should tryit out.’”
This is Ortiz’s third year, but his first year at MUHS. Before then, he wrestled for Millennium High School in Goodyear.
“I think just the team, with it being a smaller school, we’re all much tighter, much more together, and it feels more as though we’rebrothers,” he said.
Ortiz didn’t wrestle at Coconino High School on Wednesday because he said he hurt his ankle and was a little too heavy for his weight class.
“Last year, I did good,” he said. “At sectionals, I placed fourth. And after that, we don’t talk about state.”
Ortiz’s goal is to place better this year at nationals and hopefully place at the state championship in his weight class.
Teel said his goal is to help the rest of his team.
“Being a captain, a state championship would obviously be nice, but especially with these kids being new, I really want to be a leader, and I just want to help the kids,” Teel said. “I would rather see them be more successful than me.”
Freshman Kyson Mackey said this is his first year wrestling and he’s excited about the season.
“It’s my idea of fun,” he said. “You get to mess around and throw people around.”
He competed in swimming before and said the culture is so different.
“The whole team didn’t come and watch you compete,” he said. But everyone’s watching wrestling, which puts new pressure on him.
Bux said he’s very pleased with how everyone’s been wrestling so far this year.
“Because they’re so young, my goal is to just develop and train the basic moves,” he said. “So that way I can build the foundation, so foundational wrestling and then secondary, because I want to set them up for next year.”
The team will host its first home meet on Wednesday, Jan. 7, against Lee Williams and Mohave high schools.
MUHS wrestler were set to compete in the Jim Wayman Memorial invitational on Friday and Saturday, Dec. 12 and 13, at Lee Williams High School, after press time.
MUHS will have meets at Agua Fria High School on Wednesday, Dec. 17, and the Mile High Challenge in Chino Valley on Friday and Saturday, Jan. 2 and 3.
