Athletes of the Week: Central Warriors Wrestling

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KKCO) -The Central High School Warriors Wrestling Team has been on a tear so far this season, but they have hit a bit of an off stretch of their schedule.

Students are on winter break, but the Warriors aren’t taking a break from practice.

" I know a lot of us have been working out and going after practices, working out with each other. Just trying to get back into it, make sure that we don’t take too long of a break, we don’t go from doing real good this beginning of the year and then we just be sluggish in the second half,” Senior Wrestler Jaysten Sanchez said.

“You can focus on wrestling, but it’s weird to go home after and have nothing to do the rest of the day,” Senior Devin Hickey said.

Before the pause in their season the Warriors were coming off a hot streak, they had hosted the Warrior Classic Tournament, and a dual meet victory over the Palisade Bulldogs. The Warriors took down their Grand Valley rival at a score of 65-18 and had one of their better team performances in the Warrior Classic in years.

“Well personally I took first and then our team, we took second as a team which feels pretty good,” Sophomore JohnPaul Espinoza said.

“I think I did alright, I took second. I was pretty annoyed that I didn’t finish it strong, got a little tired and everything, but you know that’s part of wrestling,” Sanchez said.

The Warrior winter break practices, like most wrestling practices are no joke, and highly physical with a lot of conditioning according to the team.

“For the conditioning part of practice, we do a 20-minute run and we do sprints after, and then we do that and go practice,” Espinoza said.

Hickey offered a unique perspective on the kind of conditioning wrestling practices can demand. Before the wrestling season he was playing quarterback for the Warrior football team.

“They call it wrestling shape, and it’s probably one of the hardest shapes you have to be in,” Hickey said, “It’s a big difference from football to wrestling shape in my opinion.”

The Warrior wrestlers will resume their season in the New Year.

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