The BCCHS Wrestling Team spring season has come to an end, the kind of ending in a fairy tale, a happily ever after. The boys and girls wrestling team won their CIF (California Interscholastic Federation) dual title, taking the win against their rival, the San Fernando Tigers. This is the second time the boys have won the CIF dual title making them two-time champions. On the other hand, the girls took the City Dual Championship title for the first time and became LA CIF City Championship runner-ups.

The fight for the win wasn’t as easy as it sounds, as boys and girls wrestling team had to compete against several schools in dual meets in order to be eligible to compete for the CIF dual title.

The first round of the city duals was against the Van Nuys HS Wrestling Team that took place at Birmingham. The same night was their senior night, the team represented 12 senior girls and 9 senior boys. Van Nuys had forfeited their girls match and the boys won by 70-0,a clean sweep. Their second dual was against Monroe High School with both boys and girls competing. The Birmingham girls and boys won again with an outstanding sweep. Their next dual would be their last attempt to qualify for the CIF Duals, winner takes all. They took on the Granada Hills Highlanders here on campus and showed  non -stop fight for the win. The Patriots beat the Highlanders and their next stop was the CIF Duals! There they won, taking the trophy and soon to come CIF Dual Rings home. The team celebrated with jumps and screams that went on for a half an hour until they slowly kicked them out.

LA City Championships went pretty well for both boys and girls. With all 14 weight classes filled, the girls placed top five with three champs Karla Rivera(12) weight 121, Tiffany Calderon(11) weight 150, and Alexandra Castillo(12) weight 189. The boys fell short one person for their lineup due to a personal issue from Jacob Valencia(12) and Adrian Benjamin(10) with the 106 weight class . Other than that, with 13 boys they took the LA City title with four champs Roque Roman(11) weight 113, Jonovan Smith(11) weight 170, Carlos Gomez(12) weight 180, Joseph Chacon(12) hwt.

Birmingham took six girls and four boys to the California State Championships. Luckily, for the girls this 2018 year to go to state that had to be top two placers at city and the boys had to be first place only. The road to state for these athletes wasn’t easy for them, as most of them said it took a lot of hard work. Everyone sure did give it their all for athletes who aren’t that experienced compared to the others at state.

Two out of six girls placed at state, and one out of four boys placed. With Alex Castillo being a 4x state placer became a 2x state champ and Karla Rivera being a 2x state qualifier became a state placer. Carlos Gomez (12) got an honor award for all his hard work his past four wrestling years in high school and Jonovan Smith became a state placer for his second time being a qualifier.

The next stop for these athletes are nationals. We aren’t quite sure who’s going to go to the Oklahoma nationals but Birmingham is for sure taking a few of their wrestling athletes there.

Birmingham wrestlers are still practicing and lifting for their next out of season tournaments and next years season for those returning. Next years going to be a rough time because they will be losing many seniors this year from both boys and girls. Although the boys will still have a solid lineup, as for the girls there will only be about a handful of girls left on the team. Although these patriots have gone through a lot this year and were granted success, they all keep there heads and hopes up for the unknown future.