Photo by Will Corneilus
Sophomore Sean Barajas fought a tough, grueling and at times bloody match against Fossil Ridge’s Preston Lozada.

By Will Cornelius
The Surveyor

Wrestling returned to Berthoud High School last week, with the varsity boys side contesting in five duals over four days.

Their season began at home on Nov. 29 with a dual against Fossil Ridge High School. Returning from last year and making their senior debuts were Trevor Moore, Donovan Mann, Michael Murray and Uriah Chacon. Mann and Chacon won their matches with pinfalls while Moore and Murray lost their matches by the same fate.

The dual started with Berthoud taking a 30-6 lead after six matches before Fossil Ridge fought back to tie the match 36-36. The season-opening match would come down to the last two bouts. Junior Spartan Ian Richardson put up a robust battle before being pinned late in the third round.

Berthoud’s hope rested on returning state-qualifier Chacon in the final match. The official whistled the start of the match and Chacon circled his opponent for a moment before pouncing. Just 23 seconds later Chacon had the Fossil Ridge wrestler pinned for a win. The final victory kept the dual score even 42-42, but the Spartans were awarded the tiebreaker decision for not forfeiting any matches.

“We’re a young team, it was a tough duel,” said Head Wrestling Coach Josh Galindo after the dual. “We should have won that handily—we made a lot of mistakes but it’s expected from youth and a young team.”

Despite the close win, Galindo admitted it is still early in the season. “These wins and losses, they come and go. Right now, it’s about fine-tuning, getting to where we need to get so that toward the end of the season when it really starts to count we are firing on all cylinders.”
After a long football season, many of Berthoud’s best wrestlers have only recently turned their focus to solely wrestling. “We didn’t have a lot of our normal starting varsity because we are still trying to get back into that wrestling shape,” Galindo explained.

In addition to underclassmen getting their chance in a varsity match, the earlier JV dual with Fossil Ridge showed the depth of the Spartan wrestling program. Eleven young Berthoud wrestlers competed across 13 matches. “It was good to have a lot of freshmen out there, wrestle some live varsity matches. Hopefully in the next week or two we can start integrating our normal varsity,” Galindo stated.

Standing in the middle of the main Spartan gymnasium, Galindo said the team still had a lot of work to do after their opening dual of the season. “We got to step up the conditioning. We got a lot of stuff we got to clean up. I think this was a wake-up call that ‘Hey—we’re good, but we’re not where we need to be.’”

Berthoud spent Saturday at Greeley West High School for an all-day dual tournament. Wins over Erie High School and Greeley West put the Spartans in the top four, but losses to Fort Collins and Loveland High School constrained Berthoud to fourth place in the tournament.
After not having an opponent in the first two duals, Moore won both remaining matches in the 215-lbs division against Fort Collins and Loveland. Other Berthoud heavyweights also impressed in Greeley. Seniors Chacon (175-lbs) and Mann (285-lbs) went 2-1 in their matches against opponents and junior Ben Schroeder (190-lbs) recorded a 3-1 record across the tournament.

This week, the Berthoud wrestling squad hits the road. On Dec. 6 the team traveled with the girls wrestling team for a dual at Bennett High School. This weekend the Spartans travel to Colby, Kan. for a two-day tournament starting on Dec. 8.