McALLEN — When Emmanuel Duron told Edinburg High wrestling head coach Abel Saenz that he was coming out for the wrestling team this season, Saenz wasn’t sure what to say.
“I didn’t know if he was kidding with me or not,” Saenz said. “But I asked him, ‘What about soccer?’ He said, ‘We’ll figure it out.’”
That, they did.
In fact, they figured it out so well that Duron’s performance this year at the 220-pound weight division earned him The Monitor’s All-Area Boys Wrestler of the Year award. The junior finished with a 44-8 record, going 4-2 at the state tournament. His two losses at state came to the eventual state champion Rylan Bonds of Prosper High School, and then to the third-place finisher, Fadelellah Moounshed of Arlington Bowie.
Duron finished fifth overall at the state meet, the highest placing boys wrestler from the Rio Grande Valley this year. In the 220-pound bracket there were 14 seniors and just two juniors. Duron defeated the other junior, Johrdan Howard, by a pin in 1:20 to capture fifth.
“He should be ranked No. 1 next year when the preseason ranks come out,” Saenz said. “He has a great chance to win a state title next year, but it’s not guaranteed.”
Saenz was highly interested in the District 31-6A football defensive player of the year and three-year varsity soccer starter when he first saw him as a freshman, during Saenz’s first year as the Edinburg wrestling head coach. Quiet in stature, he’s absolutely the opposite in competition, letting his work on the pitch or the gridiron or the mat say all that needs to be said.
“He’s just so athletic,” Saenz said. “He just has these fast-twitch muscles and he’s very sudden and explosive. He’s already aggressive. In football, he’s moving non stop and that helps in wrestling.”
Duron had been thinking about joining wrestling since his freshman year but finally made that commitment as a junior. Since he hadn’t wrestled before — the first time he heard terms like “reversal” or “cradle” was during his first practice — no one knew who the new kid was.
They know now. Among the many wins, Duron defeated the Class 5A defending state champion, doing so by points in a tiring, full six-minute battle.
“Coach Saenz had been asking me since my freshman year to join and I would tell him that when I do I bet I get to state,” Duron said. “So, this year I decided to join and try it out. I like the sport. I like throwing people.”
He had plenty of chances to do that this year. The junior’s signature move is a blast double, when he shoots at his opponent and lifts them up by both legs, dropping them hard on their back for a double leg takedown. Many wrestlers will stop the move as soon as they hit their opponents who, more than likely, will sprawl so they can’t be lifted up.
“Yeah, that did not stop him,” Saenz said. “He drives through. There were many times when he would blast double and they would end up on the next mat.”
“Or a table,” Duron joked.
“All I know is that Coach would tell me to put this guy down on his back,” Duron said. “In those early practices, I had no idea what he was telling me, just that I gotta put this guy on his back. That’s what I tried to do.”
Duron put his opponents on their back enough to end his season standing on the podium in fifth place.
“It felt amazing, being on the podium for the first time,” the football defensive tackle and soccer defender said. “Next year I want to learn more moves and how to pin people from different situations.”
Saenz returned to the Rio Grande Valley where his parents are originally from, after an athletic career in Oregon. He coached at Corpus Christi King for eight years before making it all the way back and taking on the Edinburg High position. He said he’s ready to train Duron in more advanced wrestling techniques, excited to be able to see how he wrestles when he knows more devastating moves and combinations.
“I’m hoping to build off what he did this year. He wrestled a lot of times this year,” Saenz said. “Now we can get into other moves and situations, what we zoned in on after district. You get humbled in wrestling. Most people when you come in, you will get humbled right away. I don’t care how great you were in another sport — you will take your lumps in the beginning.”
“For him to finish in fifth place in Class 6A in that weight division is amazing. But it doesn’t mean any guarantees next year. Nobody knew where he came from and there’s always somebody like that every year. We have to be ready. We have to understand.”