The Bakersfield College wrestling team hosted the Western State Conference Championships on Nov. 13.
BC finished the tournament with a record of 1-3, losing to Cuesta, West Hills, and Victor Valley.
A.J. Smith was one of the few successful BC wrestlers during the four-match tournament.
Smith said that he didn’t feel comfortable at first, and that he could have been more active, but that he felt better as the day went on.
Smith is also pleased with his health at this point.
“Yeah [I’m 100%], but there is always room for improvement,” he said. “I just have to be ready for the last part of the season.”
Smith was confident going into his first match.
“I just knew they weren’t as skillful or as slick as me because I have a lot more experience than most of these guys,” Smith said. “I knew I was faster, so I really just had to capitalize on the shots I had, and try to keep a good position, and prepare for that one-second mistake, and capitalize on it and score.”
Bill Kalivas, the head coach of the wrestling team, was disappointed in the way his team performed.
“We had some issues. One of our guys didn’t make weight, another one didn’t show up,” Kalivas said. “So when you have things like that, that kind of hamstring your lineup to where you have to make adjustments, it makes it kind of tough. It puts a lot of pressure on you.”
Kalivas said that he was trying to move people around to try to make his short-handed roster work, but it never materialized, and the team was 0-2 half way through the tournament.
The team almost evened its record in the second match against West Hills, but fell in the final 30 seconds of the match to lose 21-19.
Kalivis said that it was a strange match, and that they got pinned in a weight that they shouldn’t have.
Kalivas has been trying to deal with that sort of thing all year.
“We’ve talked about this for awhile, about being prepared, not making dumb mistakes, paying attention to strategy, keeping yourself into position to give yourself a chance to win,” he said. “So those are elementary mistakes, and we are still making them.”
Kalivis is not happy with the outcome but is more concerned about the way his team competed overall.
“The disappointment for us is not necessarily the loss, I mean, losing is disappointing, but it’s how you lose that really sets the tone for the rest of your team,” he said. “And that’s more our concern, because winning and losing is going to take place, so that’s out of our hands.”
Kalivis has his work cut out for him for the final few weeks of the season.
“Well it’s hard [motivating my team] after a loss like today, I think that most of the guys that have been there before have some self-motivation,” Kalivas said. “It really doesn’t do any good to berate them, they feel badly enough that they lost but I think that when you continue to make the same mistakes then you have to reevaluate.
“So the motivation part of it I think it becomes more of an intrinsic thing, you know, how many times are you going to let me kick you before you decide that you’re going to fight back, or are you going to say, ‘OK, I’m going to avoid that situation all together,’ and I think those things are going to happen.”
Kalivis said that the head coaches decided the format of the tournament, and that they decided to hold it all in one day to save time and money, but it can have its downside.
“We decided to do it all in one day, so it lends itself to who’s prepared, who’s healthy, who has the most depth on their team,” he said.
The coaches will vote for their All-Conference team in the near future, but Kalivis is focused on the California Community College Championships.
“The state tournament is the defining moment,” said Kalivas. “You can be successful all year, and if you get beat at the end it’s a loss.”
This team will continue to work and will start challenge matches between the team to see who their top 10 individuals are.
“We’ll push the last two weeks and find out how many individuals we can qualify for the state meet and who we can get in there to be a state medalist or an all-American or even a champion and that’s about all we can do this year after a performance like today,” Kalivas said.
“A lot of them have never had the competition level that they’re involved in right now, so I think this tournament was an eye opener for a great many of them,” he said. “They’ll make some decisions on whether they want to continue next year or they might just say, ‘Hey, I’ve done this one year and the workload or the development is too much for me to do,’ and we’ll load to reload and find some other people who want to compete and just go from there.”