Seniors T.J. Grisafe (132), Paul Head (182) and Cody Williams (195) and junior Derrick Dotter (220) led the way by winning individual titles for the Mavericks, who sent six wrestlers into championship matches. It was the team’s second Division II title in the past three seasons and third overall.

Junior Connor Anderson (172) and sophomore Ian Baker (154) took second place; seniors Adam Zeigler (287) and Seth Becker (128) took third; and sophomores Phoenix Prefontaine (162) and Max Zimet (115) placed fifth. They are all scheduled to compete in the county Masters Tournament Friday and Saturday, Feb. 24 and 25 at Otay Ranch High School, while Kyle Tincup (120), who took seventh, and Drew Karson (140), eighth, are alternates.

The Masters Tournament will determine who gets the opportunity to move on to the State CIF Tournament in Bakersfield.

“The entire team worked really hard all season,” said Coach Dwayne Buth. “Every one of our wrestlers has a lot of heart, and they never quit. LCC can be very proud of them.”

For more details on the Masters Tournament, and to show your support, follow the Mavericks wrestling team on their Facebook page here. And you can catch up on the positive media coverage on LCC by checking out these links:

San Diego Union-Tribune’s coverage of the Mavericks Division II wrestling championship

KUSI on Mavericks capturing the Division II CIF Championship

North County Times on junior Derrick Dotter’s amazing rebound from knee injuries

San Diego Union-Tribune on senior stand-out T.J. Grisafe

KUSI on Avocado League West Championship win over Carlsbad

North County Times on Avocado League West Championship win over Carlsbad

Way to go Mavs!

The Mavericks took third in the La Costa Classic.

La Costa Canyon senior T.J. Grisafe beat Nevada’s state champion for first place at 138 lbs. Paul Head, senior, also earned gold by defeating Servite’s 182-pounder. Ian Baker and Cody Williams took second place at 160 pounds and 220 pounds, respectively. Adam Ziegler placed third 285 pounds.

Six additional La Costa Canyon wrestlers placed in the top eight, including:
–Max Wittmack (106) seventh
–Tsune Ramirez (113), sixth
–Max Zimet (120) eighth
–Kyle Tincup (126) sixth
–David Shuman (126) eighth
–Connor Anderson (171) eighth
–Miles Curcic (195) fifth

Come check out the excitement and support our boys at the next home dual meet happening on Jan. 12 against Oceanside in the LCC gym.

The La Costa Classic, known previously as the “Hamada Memorial” has attracted strong wrestling teams from all over the West, including:
•    Green Valley, Nevada, currently the top-ranked team in the state
•    Boulder City, Nevada
•    Cherokee Trail, Colorado
•    Servite, a perennial powerhouse from Orange County
•    Ramona, who placed second the San Diego CIF last year
•    Vista, always a top team in the San Diego region

“We are proud to host a tournament of this caliber,” said Dwayne Buth, La Costa Canyon High Wrestling Coach. “This might be the toughest tournament in San Diego this year, and it’s a great opportunity for individuals and teams to make a name for themselves. If you want to see some of the best high school wrestling in Southern California, come on out to LCC Friday and Saturday.”

Don’t Miss the Pancake Breakfast

Wrestling starts at 3 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 9, and Saturday at 9:30 a.m., with the championship round expected around 5 p.m. A pancake breakfast is scheduled for Saturday morning, and other great food will be available all day.

Here’s a book that might appeal to you: “The Fighter’s Mind,” by Sam Sheridan. The author’s well-received first book, “A Fighter’s Heart,” was about his adventures in muay Thai kickboxing and Brazilian jiu-jitsu. For “The Figher’s Mind” Sheridan met with and interviewed MMA fighters, coaches and others who have excelled in various martial arts.

Sheridan must be a good interviewer because he gets his subjects to say some pretty insightful and amazing things. The first guy he went to visit was legendary wrestler Dan Gable, whom Sheridan met on a freezing day in Iowa, where Gable also won a long string of national championships as coach for the University of Iowa.

Among the topics Gable addressed was how the habit of winning prepares a wrestler for success in big matches:

“It comes back to dealing with adversity. Too much adversity, too much losing, and it becomes the ‘same old same old.’ It becomes a habit – it’s not devastating. But if you only lose once in a while, at rare CRUCIAL times, you can build to a much higher level. You can use that as fuel.”

“My best wrestlers, most of them, were winning before they came here. They might not know any holds, or have a lot of skill, but they’d go all out, beat somebody up and run them into the ground. They knew how to win before they knew how to wrestle. That’s the critical thing. And then we take them and mold them and teach them and in a few years they’re amazing. It’s easier to teach the skills then the mentality.”

Another perspective about winning and losing comes from from Brazilian MMA coach Ricardo Liborio:

“You have to unnerstan’ you CAN lose. Somebody can beat your ass; but you can overcome, don’t get frustrated. You can’t be a quitter, you have to understand it’s not your time, it’s not your day. Just because you lose doesn’t make you a loser. It’s not the same fight every time. Be humble enough to understand—losing is part of the game. It doesn’t mean to let yourself get conquered, but to know that you can win again, at the right time you can be great. The key to doing well in competition is to accept.  Accept you can lose, you can not perform. Take this big bag of rocks out of your backpack.”

And the following from Randy Couture, who was a Greco-Roman wrestler who failed to make the Olympic team three times before he started winning UFC championships at the age of 33:

“One of the things about being an underdog, there’s no pressure. Nobody expects you to win. It frees you up to go out and compete. We often complicate things with fear of failure, all that baggage of winning and losing. Being an underdog is freedom.”

“I realized I get way more nervous for wrestling than for fights. Way more keyed up. When I realized that, I thought, that’s odd. This guy could kick my head off, but I’m not worried about that at all. I’m having fun, I’m enjoying learning all this new stuff. I stopped and thought why the hell am I so nervous for the wrestling matches? I’d lost perspective, I was putting all this pressure on myself. It came down to one match, everything hinged on it, so I’d forgotten that I loved to wrestle and why I started wrestling—because it’s fun.”

“The first thing is perspective—I frame things in a positive way, and stay reflective. It’s almost a cliché, but in the grand scheme of my life, if the worst thing that happens to me is I lose a wrestling match, even if it’s the Olympic finals, then I’m doing pretty damn good.”

I’m not even done reading it, but the book is full of great stuff about the mental side of competition, and how to prepare yourself to win, on and off the mat,  so I wanted to give you a heads up.

As Renzo Gracie said: “We’re all fighting something.”

If you find yourself fighting boredom this summer, pick up “The Fighter’s Mind.” Amazon has it in hardcover for just $10. Or maybe you can borrow my copy when I’m done

We caught up with T.J. before he took off for the state meet at Fresno to ask him a few questions about his routine and what motivates him.

Maverick wrestler T.J. Grisafe pinning an opponent at the Master's Championships.

LCC Wrestling: What’s your favorite thing to eat after you weigh in and before your first match?

TJ: Dar-Blu Gades and Clif Bars. Maybe the occasional Sar-Le bage with some goobs. (It’s in code…the wrestlers will get it.)

LCC Wrestling: Do you have a favorite pin combination?

TJ: To see my opponent break when I crank them with legs

LCC Wrestling: You’re a cross country and track runner too. How has running has helped your performance as a wrestler?

TJ: As Coach Buth would say, it helps to put a lot in your tank. Because of my endurance, I can out-hustle and out-work my opponent.

LCC Wrestling: Wrestling well requires a lot of things — solid technique, good stamina, fierce determination. Do you have a particular strength, and if so, how did you develop it?

TJ: No one can keep me down. Speed and mental frame of mind help a lot on bottom. If you can stand up and not get taken down, and ride someone on top, you wont lose.

LCC Wrestling: What inspires you to wrestle?

TJ: The feeling of getting your hand raised is the main thing that drives me toward the top. Nothing is better than knowing you have defeated the opponent. That success is a feeling that nothing else can compare to.

Congrats to T.J. on a spectacular season, and good luck at State!

Sophomore Connor Anderson took third at 173 pounds; freshman Drew Karson captured fourth at 125 pounds; junior Seth Becker placed fifth at 130 pounds; and heavyweight Adam Zeigler, a junior, took fifth. Senior Dylan Shapiro is an alternate at 140 pounds.

“We’re a young team, and I’m proud of what our guys brought to the CIF tournament,” said Head Coach Dwayne Buth. “Our entire squad battled hard all year. There was no quit in our wrestlers. We made our mark, and we have a strong foundation to build upon.”

Grisafe is now a two-time CIF finalist. Karson is only the third freshman in LCC history (along with Ryan Williams and Tim Randall) to place in the top four at the CIF tournament.

“Our season is not over yet,” said Buth. “These six wrestlers have earned the right to compete in the San Diego Section Masters Championships this weekend. Each is well-prepared and, confident and capable, and they are peaking at the right time. Go Mavs!”

T.J. Grisafe, 2nd Place

Connor Anderson, 3rd Place

Drew Karson, 4th Place

Seth Becker, 5th Place

Adam Zeigler, 5th Place

Willis Reed is an NBA Hall of Famer who won two championships with the New York Knicks.

For a basketball player, giving yourself every chance to win means keeping the game close so that you and your team have a shot at the end. Play defense, sink your foul shots, get the ball to the tall guy, blah, blah, blah.

What about for a wrestler?

To the average person watching, you have a 50/50 chance of winning any given match. And it’s true. At the end, the ref is going to raise your hand or his.

So how do you increase the odds in your favor – really give yourself “every possible chance to win?”

I want your input in the comments, but here are a few ideas to get it rolling:

• Listen to your coaches. Listen during the match, when they’re yelling specific tactical instructions. Listen during practice, when they’re teaching you those moves. You have an amazing coaching staff. Don’t waste your access to all that knowledge.
• Fuel yourself well. You don’t have to cut whole food groups from your diet. But you don’t want to make a habit of sugary snacks and salt-laden meals. It catches up with you.
• Believe. Way more than any team sport, wrestling requires not just the belief, but the conviction that you, on your own, are going to prevail. Without that certainty, what are your odds?
• Keep it light. You have a goal. It might be to win or place in league, CIF or even state, or maybe just to have a winning record. You also have a lot of pride, or you wouldn’t be wrestling. You’re probably harder on yourself than anyone else is. You’re going to lose sometimes. It’s not the end of the world. Find ways to enjoy the day-by-day journey to your goal, whatever that is, and you’ll insure that you don’t burn out along the way.

So, what do you think? Can you actually tip the odds in your favor – from 50/50 to 80/20, or even 90/10?

And what’s your best advice? Share it in the comments!

From deep in the vault at Sports Illustrated, here’s a story about Dan Gable, who lost only one match over his career at Iowa State and is on everyone’s short list of the top collegiate wrestlers of all time.

Check out Gables pre-match routine:

Gable’s metamorphosis into Super-wrestler begins five hours before a bout, when he shows up for the weigh-in, scaling a few ounces under his 137-pound limit. In the previous 48 hours he has suffered off 10 pounds by not eating and by working out in the wrestling room, where Coach Harold Nichols keeps the temperature at 95 degrees. Then he undergoes three hours of volcanic final preparation. It starts in his room, where he begins to pace like a restless cat, pausing only to go through an elaborate series of exercises. An hour before the match he arrives in the Iowa State dressing room. There his pace becomes almost frenzied. In quick succession, he runs in place, pushes against his locker as if to drive it through the wall, tugs at the coat-rack, flops to the cement floor to do pushups, rolls on his back and touches his toes behind his head, bounds up and paces back and forth. Then he tugs at his uniform, pushes against an oversized wastebasket, loosens his wrestling robe, jiggles his hands as he does a dance step, ties his robe in place, straddle-jumps, jogs in place, bends over to touch his toes and exhorts his teammates to “Be ready to give it all you’ve got right from the start.”

Explains Gable, “It’s my way of getting psyched up. I like to get really nervous. I’m not ready unless my hands are icy. My Dad gets nervous, too. He used to take movies of all my matches, but he got too nervous and always wound up taking a lot of pictures of the ceiling. He even hired a professional photographer to take movies of me and he got pictures of the ceiling, too.”

Such shots are entirely understandable once one has seen Gable perform, for when he gets those icy hands of his on an opponent the opponent usually winds up flat on his back, gazing at that oft-photographed ceiling.

Read the entire story here.