Sophomore-to-be places seventh at nationals after tough exit from freestyle tournament.
By Mike Miazga
Correspondent
Addison Trail sophomore-to-be Guillermo Juarez earned himself a large measure of personal redemption recently.
After being disqualified for failing to make weight during the freestyle nationals tournament in Fargo, N.D., Juarez didn’t close up shop.
He went on to earn All-American honors during the Greco-Roman portion of nationals by finishing seventh in the 94-pound division.
“It feels very good to bring that back to my hometown,” he said. “All the work and all the days of sweating and killing my body is all worth it.”
But it was far from smooth sailing in Fargo in the beginning.
“I didn’t make weight,” Juarez said. “I felt real bad knowing that I let down all the people back home and all my coaches who have been there for me. Having to let people know I didn’t make weight the second day of freestyle was a bummer.”
Juarez said he ended up being 0.6 pounds over the limit during that second weight in.
“I had qualified for nationals a couple months ago and I weighed 96 pounds,” he said. “This summer I’ve been lifting weights and I got bigger. I didn’t realize I had gotten this big. Once I weighed myself I was at 104 pounds. I realized I had to get down to 94 for nationals. I was able to get back down to weight for freestyle. There are two weigh-ins. It was pretty hard.”
Juarez said he has received a mountain of support from Addison-based Headlock Wrestling head coach Sam Geraci, Addison Trail head coach Rob Serio, as well as former Addison Trail female wrestler Veronica Carlson, who was coaching in the girls’ division at nationals but lent a key hand in Juarez’s road to All-American status.
“All my coaches have helped me out. I have to give all of them credit,” said Juarez. “Sam is always there giving me ideas about moves. Coach Serio at Addison Trail always has a plan. He helps me out with everything in my matches and outside wrestling as well. Veronica was there and helped me out. She helped me cut weight. I had three hours to cut two pounds and she helped me with that with exercising. When you have coaches you can trust it makes you walk onto the mat and feel better about everything and feel confident about winning matches.”
Geraci added: “He came all the way back and got seventh place and earned All-American honors. That’s pretty good.”
Juarez said getting to weight in the Greco-Roman division was tougher.
“I’m not going to lie it was harder,” he said. “It’s not hard to do it, but it’s tougher when your body is tired. I kept on exercising but I kept thinking to myself I want to go to bed. But that freestyle weigh-in put me in the mindset that I don’t want to disappoint anybody anymore. I believed it and I made it through the first weigh-in for Greco and the second day I made it as well. I had the right mindset. I wanted to take something home. I didn’t want to come back home with nothing.”
Juarez said his gut-wrench move, in particular, helped him out in Fargo. “My guts were feeling good so I kept working on them,” he said. “That’s where you already have somebody on the mat and you try and turn them to get more points. That move helped get me multiple points.”
Juarez is filled with anticipation for the upcoming Addison Trail wrestling season.
“This gives me a lot of confidence,” he said. “I’m hoping my teammates will have a lot of confidence as well. You have to think about your teammates as well. I came into this as a nobody and came out with some pretty good results. I have a lot of confidence going into this season. I’m going to try my hardest to go downstate this year and see what I can do down there.”
