During the wrestling meet on January 1, 2025, against Stover at the Fair Grove High School, all the senior students were announced and celebrated for their accomplishments this year during wrestling.
While at the meet, according to Tobie Garcia (12), the wrestlers had put up a good fight against Stover but they ended up losing. Though they lost, she added that the team had learned a lot from Stover wrestlers.
The seniors that wrestled for Fair Grove were Riley Frazer (12), Tobie Garcia(12), Brielle Mahr (12), Alexzander Mahan (12), Carson Krider (12), and Shelby Haskins (12). All of these students had their parents/guardians/relatives walk them down and they did announcements for them about their future and what they plan to do after high school.
While the students had been getting walked down by their loved ones, they received several gifts from the team and family. These gifts typically included goodie bags, flowers, and they also got photos with the loved ones that they walked down with. One of the wrestling coaches, Natalie Palomo, said that it was very cool to see this memorable interaction with these seniors and their loved ones.
Garcia had a very memorable moment while walking down. She explained, “For me I think It was actually being able to make my family proud of me and being able to walk me down, this definitely has become a core memory for my family.”
Natalie Palomo, had positive feedback about these seniors. She stated, “I think they did a great job pushing themselves and each other for excellence even knowing they only had this one shot.” She also said that it was very hard for these students to compete against people who had been in wrestling for many years. But she was proud that the kids didn’t let this get to them and pushed them to the next level.
Palomo added that she thought that all the wrestling kids, even the ones who weren’t seniors, wrestled very well and “left everything out on the mat.”
To start the next season of wrestling, the team members will start doing offseason soon and they just had their wrestling meeting to invite all the new kids to talk to all the new and old kids about wrestling.
