LJ wrestling: An afternoon at a dual meet

By Ed Piper

Thurs., Jan. 4, 2018
Dual meet: La Jolla at Cathedral Catholic

2 p.m. Viking wrestlers arrive on campus. Several, many of them underclassmen, ooh-and-ah in their first visit to the campus, which kind of looks like a college campus with its spacious sports fields, arching walkways, and unique architecture.

A couple of wrestlers want to see the aquatics complex, and remark on the pop music blaring out of the pool area toward the gym in front of it.

2:20 p.m. Tanner Shimp, a Viking freshman wrestler, juggles. A photographer asks him to juggle again to take a photo.

Team members wait for a key, then are let in to the back of the Cathedral gym building, where they go downstairs to the Don wrestling room.

2:41 p.m. Christophe Naviaux, 170-pound wrestler, says, "I'm hyper now. I don't have a match. I looked at their (Cathedral's) board. They have somebody at 150. They could move him up to 160. But not 170 to wrestle me, a senior.

Question: "Where was the energy going before?"

Naviaux: "I was focusing (on my potential match)."

Three minutes later--Christophe: "They might have a wrestler at 170. That board (on the Don team room wall) might not be accurate."

2:45 p.m. Weigh-ins for both teams begin. Low weights first. Wrestlers strip down to boxers or shorts, no shoes. The Cathedral head coach uses a digital scale that quickly shows the weight. He calls out for each weight, to bring wrestlers waiting in the two separate lines up in order by ascending weight.

Other coaches chat on the side. The wrestlers wait quietly to get to the front of the line.

After being weighed, Viking wrestlers, left alone in the Don team room as Cathedral's wrestlers go out onto their mat laid in the center of the gym floor where the meet will take place, start eating sandwiches with lunch meat and other items. They waited to eat again until after they made weight. You weigh too much, and you don't get to wrestle. So it's a big deal.