As Coach Chris Manisay puts it, wrestling is unique because it is a combat sport.
“The whole endpoint is to pin someone on the back,” Manisay said. “That’s two shoulders and the upper mid back on the mat. That would be a pin. You can also get points like tilts for exposing their backs 90 degrees on the mat,” he said.
During a match, wrestlers compete against a wrestler of their own weight class, wrestler Noel Hwang, a third-year wrestler said. If a wrestler has extra fat rather than muscle, they will be encouraged to cut down to compete in a weight class they would be stronger in, he said.
“If you don’t keep up with them (wrestlers), then they’re just going overpower you,” Hwang said. “So you want to try cutting as much as you can so that you can wrestle against people who were either too scared to cut, or couldn’t cut, or against people who are of a similar strength level as you.”
First competitions can be scary, freshman Gisele Fan said. However, in the most recent competition, which she could not compete in due to an injury, Fan noticed an improvement in her friends’ progress, she said.
“It’s not like you’re scared of your opponent, necessarily,” Fan said. “You’re just scared of failing in front of a bunch of people,” she said.
Hwang’s first competition was initially nerve-wracking, he said. He learned a lot from the match and learned to move past the discouragement, he said.
“It was rough because usually if you go against someone that’s a lot better than you, it’s really discouraging because you get beat up a lot,” Hwang said. “But I realized that those moments were the most important moments. If you don’t have those moments, then you can’t get better. With every hit and every time I got wrecked, I learned a lot from that.”
According to the Trojan Athletics website, the wrestling team had three wins, two losses, and one tie.
Fan started wrestling to get fit for another sport, and because her family members had a past in wrestling, she said.
“At first it (wrestling) was a lot harder to adapt to since I didn’t know what was going on,” Fan said. “But even just after a couple of months of doing the sport, if you’re focused on it, then it’s quite a nice experience,” she added.
Hwang started after being encouraged by people around him, Hwang said.
“I think at first because people were like ‘Oh you’re so big, you should do wrestling,’ I was like, oh yeah, maybe I should do wrestling, but I had no idea about wrestling back then,” Hwang said.
To succeed in wrestling, wrestlers must be prepared and dedicated, Hwang added.
“It’s not going to be easy,” Hwang said.“You’ve got to fight, and even if you lose, even if you’re discouraged, just keep on going. You’ve got to push through it because if you don’t, someone else will,” he said