“As captain, I have to balance control and leadership skills with understanding and patience.  Every mistake is a learning experience.” – Painter

“We have one girl on the team this year named Judy Gonzalez.  CIF recently decided to add girls wrestling as a CIF sport, and next year there will be a girls CIF state wrestling tournament. – Falk

Though wrestling does not receive as much publicity as some of the other CHS sports, the team is one of the most dedicated at CHS.  Ever since Coach Falk began coaching at CHS in 1995, the team has had a winning record for all but two seasons, making this CHS team one of the most consistently high performing.

“Kids who wrestle are a different breed of athlete,” said Falk.  “They work harder than almost any other sport in terms of physical conditioning and have high expectations for themselves, never making excuses when they make mistakes.”

Falk’s current goal is to increase the number of wrestlers to 40 or more, so that the team will have 14 weight categories to give them a better chance at beating tough rivals like Royal High School.  As captains, sophomores Emerson Painter and Nick Krutilek lead by example as they communicate advice to the younger wrestlers to improve their skills.

“Our team lacks three and four year wrestlers, which makes us less experienced than most teams, but with the impressive amount of freshmen, we will definitely have a very formidable core of experienced wrestlers in a year or two,” said Painter.

With the many freshmen players who have joined this year, Falk, Painter and Krutilek have high hopes for this season.