Riley Sullivan
Staff Writer
Mira Costa sophomore Jared Williams stepped up to compete in this year’s Freestyle Wrestling tournament on April 16th in Fresno. Williams ended up placing 4th out of some of the most talented high school wrestlers in all of California.
The tournament itself is a solo tournament which means it is not a Mira Costa wrestling team event. Also, it’s a “freestyle” tournament with slightly different rules to the traditional wrestling he’s used to. Freestyle wrestling combines some techniques from wrestling with many other fighting styles such as judo.
“This tournament was a lot different than most because I’m used to my team being there supporting me,” Williams said. “But overall it was still a great experience.”
Jared chose to do this tournament on his own time during the offseason. He wanted to get some extra practice before his next wrestling season. It gave him a chance to wrestle new people and learn new moves from them Williams said.
“I mainly wanted to do this tournament for the extra practice, I had no idea I’d be able to place among the wrestlers in my weight class,” said Williams.
Jared had to take extra time to prepare for this tournament because of the new rules involved. His dad, Rick Williams, helps him train daily outside of practice, which helped Jared master the new rules in preparation for the tournament.
“It’s a different kind of tournament with new rules,” Williams said. “I trained for a month with these rules and was able to learn them.”
Williams had to face up and win against 4 wrestlers in order to place 4th in the Freestyle State tournament. Overall, Jared is interested in wrestling more solo tournaments to not only get extra practice, but to try and beat the best of the best.
“I definitely want to compete in some more tournament this offseason to really get prepared for next season and possibly win CIF next year,” said Williams.
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