Jessica Villanueva knew she more than likely would have to get through Isabella Alva to make it to the state wrestling tournament later this year.
When the two 185-pound wrestlers collided as a possible preview to that regional match, Villanueva, a PSJA High senior wrestler, earned a convincing result, a 44-second pin in the championship match of the 2022 Craig T Grace CenTex Wrestling Tournament over the weekend.
Villanueva improved to 29-0 this year while Alva, of San Antonio Churchill, fell to 29-5. It was also Villanueva’s 100th career victory.
The PSJA High grappler wasn’t the only big winner at Eastside High School in Austin. The McAllen Memorial girls finished the 33-team event in second with 123 points, trailing only Copperas Grove with 142 points and sneaking past Dripping Springs with 120 points.
“The girls are wrestling very well right now and are on a roll,” McAllen Memorial head coach Eddie Gonzalez said. “They are working hard and exceeding expectations. They are doing what they need to do and what they can to help at every weight class. It’s a numbers game at these tournaments.”
The Mustangs also captured three weight class championships. Serenity De La Garza (20-0) pinned Dripping Springs’ Caroline Nix (24-9) in 19 seconds at 138 pounds. Maya Marroquin (21-2) fell Leander Glenn’s Savannah Wright (26-4) in 3:36 at 148 pounds and Eternity De La Garza (22-1) dropped Leander Glenn’s Sofia Vasquez Acevedo (25-4) in 1:58 at 165. Jazmine Hernandez (19-10) also placed for Memorial, taking fifth with a 4-0 decision over Leander Glenn’s Lexie Garcia (18-3) at 215.
“We knew that this was a girl she was going to have to beat to be a regional champ,” PSJA High head coach Javier Rendon said regarding Villanueva. “She went out there and took her down to her back in the first sequence. She’s only had one match go the full three periods.
“It’s a blessing and a curse. She’s just wrestling so well that these girls don’t have an answer for her. It’s important that she believes the training she has done will take her through those tougher matches later on. Right now, she’s just blowing through everybody.”
In Rendon’s view on the girls Class 6A 185-pound weight class, Villanueva is the best in Texas.
“I 100% believe that and I think she believes that. At the state tournament, maybe four or five wrestlers can win it, or maybe all 16 can but, in my eyes, she’s the best.
“One of the biggest changes about her this year is she accepted the leadership role. We have a very young team and that’s important both for her and for them. She shows it in practice. She pushes her teammates and she pushes herself.”
Villanueva has been dominant, and the key to remaining that way is to learn from the different forms she may face, and to make sure she dictates the action. That way she keeps herself within her strengths, and doesn’t place herself in her opponent’s strengths.
“In one tournament, you’re going to face three or four different styles and you have to do what you do best and wrestle where you want to wrestle,” said Rendon, in his second year as head coach after three as an assistant at PSJA. “Get to where you want to be. There are certain positions she’s really good at. If she can get there and take care of herself, if she can wrestle where’s she’s comfortable, she can just go from there.
“You can tell from how they wrestle when they start if they’re gonna have that ‘bug,’” Rendon said. “It’s hard to see that in practice, to see if they have that edge. First one we went to with Jessica (as an eighth-grader), we saw it.”
CENTEX BOYS TOURNAMENT
PSJA High’s Damian Aguilera and Sharyland High’s Paolo Miranda and Moses Rodriguez each finished second at the CenTex boys event over the weekend.
Aguilera dropped his first match of the season and is now 31-1 after a 3-2 decision in the 113-pound division for Brett Burgess (24-3) of Austin Lake Travis.
Miranda, a junior, was pinned in the 120-pound category at 3:51 against Austin Vandegrift’s Carter Taylor (32-3). It was also Miranda’s first lost of the season and he is now 21-1.
Rodriguez (25-6) fell in an 11-1 major decision to Aidan Williams (26-4) of Austin Lake Travis at 160 pounds
Lake Travis and Vandegrift easily outdistanced the rest of the 30-school field, winning first and second, respectively. Rio Grande City was the highest finished Valley team in eighth, followed by La Joya Juarez-Lincoln in ninth and Sharyland High in 11th.