By Ed Piper
The first off-season tournament for La Jolla's wrestlers comes this Sat., March 18, at Poway High. Run by the San Diego-Imperial Counties Kids Wrestling Association, this tourney will pit grapplers in grades 9-12 in 15 weight classes from 100 pounds to 285, beginning at 9 a.m.
Saturday's tourney will be the first of six spreading out until May 6 at the venue.
Said Viking head coach Kellen Delaney in an email to families of his wrestlers, "Our Spring wrestling session has been going very well, with a strong group of participants."
There are two tracks of off-season workouts for LJHS wrestlers this spring. One consists of professional trainer Ryan Lennard's strength and conditioning sessions, which Delaney himself, 37 years old, is taking part in with his wrestlers in preparation for his own tournament competition in April in Las Vegas with Lennard attending.
Ryan is a former Viking wrestler, and he served as a trainer for the Chinese National Team a couple of years ago.
The other set of workouts has to do with the six Poway High tourneys, including Saturday's competition. The Viking varsity wrestling team captured the Eastern League championship this winter with a 5-0 dual meet record, including eclipsing league rivals Cathedral Catholic and Madison. Five wrestlers took All-Eastern League honors.
It was heady stuff for a program that had to weather the COVID-19 shutdown beginning March 13, 2020, with hand-to-hand, skin-on-skin preparation severely restricted and mask mandates in place for much of the next two years.
Somehow, Delaney and his colleagues kept the Viking program intact and put together a slate of male and female wrestlers--La Jolla had four girls compete in 2022-23--through thick-and-thin.
Three of the five Viking wrestlers named All-League are underclassmen and plan to return to the mat for the LJHS team in 2022-23: junior Gustav Rinaldi (160 pounds), sophomore Jack Long (170), and freshman Noah Pace (108).
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