Dangerous. Intimidating. Powerful. All things that the GHS Wrestling team has made themselves out to be. Spending their weekend at the Liberty Classic Invitational Tournament, the Gilbert Tigers received 3rd place. But what people don’t realize is the amount of work that it takes to get where they are. One teammate, Gabriel Leivas, has been a competitor for GHS since his freshman year. “One thing that I think goes unnoticed is the work we have to do. People say that it’s easy and then they get in there and end up quitting. It’s just a lot of effort you have to put in,” Leivas said. He also made clear that the GHS wrestling team is still hoping for more support in the stands, despite the busy holiday season. “I think it would be really great if more people showed up,” Leivas said.
Wrestling is visibly a complicated sport from the point system to some of the advantages of weight class. While wrestling may be frequently overlooked, it can serve as a backbone for other major sports. Breyben Werner, an offensive lineman for the GHS football team, recognizes the power that wrestling has when it comes to staying in shape during the offseason. “The whole reason I started wrestling is to get better at football. I wanted to learn how to use people’s momentums against them. As an offensive lineman, my job is to just stand up and wrestle with the other lineman for 4 seconds straight so it really helps; I thought football was pretty intense until I went to wrestling conditioning. It’s a straight 3 hours of hard-core cardio. You can’t compare it to anything else,” Werner said.
The constant hours of intense conditioning and hard work leading up to only 6 minutes in the match could determine their standing in the final top 3. In the past week, Gilbert High School hosted a meet of its own against Sunnyslope and Alhambra High School. The Tigers had an excellent opening against Alhambra winning 42-18 and a close loss against Sunnyslope with a score of only 36-39. While the meet had a mix of wins and losses, the Tigers prepare to continue training during the winter break to come back even stronger than ever.

Keeping his opponent in a tight lock, this wrestler helps GHS secure the victory of the match.