San Francisco State University’s wrestling team lost against Cal Poly Humboldt at the Gymnasium for their final game of the season held at home on Feb. 8.
SFSU graduate and assistant coach Lawrence Saenz said he was pleased with the team’s performance despite the odds against them.
“I think I’m really proud of our effort,” Saenz said. “In our match, we knew it was gonna be a tough duel. Whenever you’re in a 12.0 deficit to start a duel, it’s really hard to come back. And I think I’m really proud of the way our team was able to respond and match that adversity.”
SFSU’s coaching method is to not worry so much about what the scoreboard says but rather the results.
“I think a lot of the times, especially in wrestling, you can get really stressed out about giving up the first takedown or giving up a score in general right?” Saenz said. “And then you tense up and it really restricts your ability to kind of perform. And what we tell a lot of the guys is don’t. We don’t care about the result.”
A factor that possibly led to the loss was the multiple injuries the wrestlers had prior to the match.
“The first match didn’t turn out as well as we had hoped,” said Mike Yamasaki, the father of SFSU wrestler Sean Yamasaki. “We had a few wrestlers, one that was injured, another one that didn’t make weight, so we had to scramble to put a team together.”
There were a couple of things that the Gators needed to work on before the match, according to SFSU alum Rich Goodwin.
“Like getting off bottom, or, you know, being more offensive,” Goodwin said.
Cal Poly Humboldt’s wrestling coach Jim Zalesky was pleased about the turnout.
“It was a good competition with San Francisco State,” Zalesky said. “You know, we’ve seen them and they got some really good guys and match up well.”
During the first match, SFSU wrestler Felipe De Matos was pulling the head of a Humboldt wrestler. The opposing wrestler had De Matos’ leg, but he was able to take him down. It was a win for the SFSU sophomore athlete.
“I feel like I could have shot more,” De Matos said. “I feel like there were a lot of boxes that I didn’t take that I could have taken, but I’m glad of the ones that I did take, which led me to that cradle. But unfortunately, I’m still focusing on the opportunities that I missed.”
The Gators were facing an 18-3 deficit against the visiting Lumberjacks before they closed the gap to 18-16. Cal Poly Humboldt earned an additional six points, leaving them at 24 points. The Gators then raised their score to 22 points. The meet ended with the Lumberjacks taking victory 27-22 at “The Swamp.”
Beyond the score and their seventh loss of the season, Saenz credited the team’s persistence throughout the entirety of their matches.
“Our home team wanted to keep going no matter what the scoreboard says,” Saenz said. “We don’t want to get frozen. We rather work on our performance rather than the result.”
Editor’s Note: This story was updated to correct Cal Poly Humboldt’s mascot from “Broncos” to “Lumberjacks.”
