New sports drawing girls at Capital, Santa Fe High

Dec. 25—Exhaustion dripped from the pores of Alyssa Sandoval as she tried to finish her first wrestling match.

Sandoval's saving grace was that she could see the same thing out of her opponent, and it was the motivation she needed to keep going.

Sandoval normally played basketball during the winter at Capital, but the junior decided to give wrestling a try this season. Her first match came at Capital's very own Jaguar Invitational on Dec. 4, and she faced Los Alamos' Claire Bullock, who had a year of experience in the sport as a freshman in 2019-20.

It was not an auspicious start, as Sandoval fell behind 7-1 early in the second period as her inexperience showed. In her search for motivation, she found it in the heavy breathing of her opponent.

"I couldn't breathe, I was dying," Sandoval said. "But then I go to look at her and she was kinda tired, too. Then, I was like, 'OK,' and then every muscle and every bone in my body was trying to get her [down on the mat]."

Sandoval didn't win, but she made a respectable showing in getting to the end of the match, which Bullock won, 10-5. In that moment, Sandoval said she knew she found her calling.

"I felt like I could do something here," Sandoval said.

It helped that she recovered to take first place in the 114-pound division, thanks to a pin of Los Alamos' Jalyn Gould in her second match. She was one of five wrestlers to finish on the podium for Capital at its meet.

With girls wrestling in its second year as a sanctioned sport in the state, Capital and Santa Fe High are starting to draw competitors. Sandoval is one of eight girls wrestlers in Capital's program, while Santa Fe High has two.

Even though the sport has been around for four years —the first two years were as an exhibition sport before the New Mexico Activities Association sanctioned it — this year's totals represent the first time Santa Fe's two biggest public high schools have participants.

Marcos Gallegos, Capital's head wrestling coach, said he had one wrestler come out in the truncated spring season — junior Nisa Gallegos (no relation) — but she injured her shoulder and could not compete. He made a concerted effort to recruit girls wrestlers, encouraging students from his physical education classes he teaches as well as setting up a booth during lunch time to drum up interest.

It's not an easy sell, Gallegos said.

"It's been a pleasant surprise that these girls are willing to come in and embrace that grind," Gallegos said. "I mean, we have a lot of guys who just can't handle the practices or the constant drilling and the physicality of the sport."

Lucas Trujillo, Santa Fe High's head coach, said Eden Sladery and Alana Jaurez-Acevedo had prior wrestling experience and sought him out to join the team.

Sladery won the 107-pound division at Capital's meet, while Juarez-Acevedo was second. She finished third at the Rio Hondo Scruffle on Dec. 18.

"These two girls are pretty good," Trujillo said. "They're hanging in there and they're a lot better than any girls I've taught before."

Coach Gallegos and his staff are teaching a mixed group of veterans and newcomers. The one virtue he has learned is patience, as he tries to explain basic wrestling terminology and technique.

"We use the KISS technique — keep it simple, stupid,' " Marcos Gallegos said. "So, a lot of our technique is really basic. That first month in November, where we don't have competition, we went a little bit slower to put in technique and keep it really basic."

Veterans like Nisa Gallegos and Maliyah Maes, who was on the team in 2019-20 before missing out on the spring because of the pandemic, do their part to help the inexperienced wrestlers learn and grow.

Nisa Gallegos said the repetition of going over similar concepts and techniques has been a blessing.

"I forget some of the moves, but then when we go back over them, it helps me learn it," Nisa Gallegos said. "Then, when I'm in a match, I just remember going over and over stuff, so I have more confidence to do it."

Maes said she helped recruit Sandoval to wrestling since the two of them are good friends and teammates on the volleyball team.

Sandoval was working out with the wrestling program during the sports physical education class, so that made it easier to sell her on joining.

Once that happened, Maes said other teammates and friends showed some interest in wrestling, but she hopes they will come out at some point — even this year.

"There was one of our other volleyball players, and she told me she was gonna try it," Maes said. "She said she wanted to do it her freshman year, but softball was her priority. She was so close to doing it."

Sandoval said trying a new sport was intriguing, and coach Gallegos was open to letting her continue to compete in club volleyball, which she is doing through the winter.

She added, she is not shy at asking questions when she doesn't understand a concept or a technique, and she found that other new wrestlers did the same thing.

"The coaches will explain something to me, and there's times where they're explaining it and I'm like, 'OK, I don't know what you're saying,' " Sandoval said. "'Like when you say, 'Turn this way' or 'turn that way' or to 'grab this way.' The girls who have experience, or even the boys, too, they come up and explain it in a different way and that helps me."

Sandoval said the first few weeks of practices were eye-opening in terms of conditioning.

She said volleyball and basketball activity usually gets the legs and shoulders in shape, but wrestling is a full-body workout — even in practice.

"I thought I was in shape for other sports," Sandoval said. "Then you come to wrestling and I'm like, 'Dude, I'm not in shape at all!' "

Coach Gallegos said some of his wrestlers have potential to do well in the state tournament in February, but cautioned against saying who and how many could make it.

Sandoval said it would be nice to be one of those state placers, but she feels like next year might be her opportunity to bring home some hardware.

For now, she and her new teammates are keeping it simple.

"We're always like, 'OK, this week we have to put in 110 percent,' " Sandoval said. "Then next Monday comes and we're like, 'OK, this week we actually have to put in 110 percent.' We're just always trying to push each other, going for that 110 percent."