In the world of high school sports, certain events stand out for their unique energy, fierce competition, and unforgettable moments. Shadow Ridge will be having their girls and boys show up in the Freak Show Tournament to start off the 2024-2025 season for the Shadow Ridge Wrestling team and an all star girl who will be wrestling in it is senior Ilayda Augafa.
Augafa states, “It is one of the biggest Rocky Mountain National tournaments, and wrestling clubs from all over the nation send some of their wrestlers to compete. Knowing it was going to be a tough tournament was enough for me to want to compete in it.”
Augafa has only been wrestling for a little over a year, she tried out wrestling because her friend suggested it. What motivated her to continue though was wanting to be a better person overall.
“Physically, I push myself during practices. I face someone who is more my same level of competition, and someone who I know will push me to work harder than anyone else would. Mentally, I just know that people don’t care for any other matches besides their own, so I only focus on my matches. Feeling intimidated by better wrestlers is natural– but I have to go into the match knowing I can win, even if I can’t, because if you doubt yourself, you have already lost,” comments Augafa.
So many strategies are used when athletes wrestle. A key strategy is patience; a lot of times during her matches Augafa tends to rush to a move, rather than just working and looking for angles. Patience with agility is the true way that she wrestles better.
Augafa says, “Weight room twice a week, working the whole body. We did shoulders, back, chest, legs, and core every time we went to the weight room. We also ran a mile every Wednesday (though I also ran outside of practice, just not as rigorously). Then we would go over basics quickly, shots, ducks, snap downs, etc. We would then go over new moves, working angles on how to get to those moves, and then how to defend them.”
Cutting weight has to be one of the most challenging aspects of any wrestling tournament for Augafa. Her energy feels depleted, and it’s hard to enjoy her sport when she feels so drained.
“Whenever I step onto the mat, my surroundings disappear. All I can hear is the whistle blowing and coaches yelling. It again trails back to the mentality of most wrestlers, they don’t care what happens on other peoples mats. Only their match matters,” says Augafa.
