Bound, determined!

Photo / William Wilczewski

The Four Horsemen And One Pony—from left to right, Areana Villaescusa (aka, The Pony), Eric Jeong, Marky Lopez, Pablo Chavez and Patrick Penniston—are all headed to the state wrestling meet Friday and Saturday in Prescott Valley.

Bound, determined!

On, off the state mat these Hawks are ready to take on the state, world

Feature story by William Wilczewski

Your typical state wrestling preview story would start by talking about the Rio Rico High (Ariz.) Hawk matmen taking 6th place with 84 points as a team in 2012, but by adding one more grappler—a matwoman this time—they have higher finishing hopes in 2013.

Blah, blah, blah, right?

And, while this is true, this is not what this preview story is about because, AGAIN, this is not your typical preview story.

Your typical story, though, would go on to say that the Hawks last won the team title back in 2001, were state runners-up in 2002 and won region titles back in 2000, 2002, 2007 and 2010, plus have had 21 individual state champions and a handful of national placers.

Then, if it were typical (which it’s not), it would say that 145-pound senior Marky Lopez, who is 36-1 so far this season, is going for this third straight title Friday and Saturday, and that senior Eric Jeong (138, 30-4) is going for his first after a controversial referee call last season robbed him of his first.

Then it would say that seniors Pablo Chavez (195, 25-3) and Patrick Penniston (220, 36-2) are also trying to redeem themselves from respective third and fifth place finishes in 2012.

Finally, if this were a typical state wrestling preview story, which it’s not, it would add that junior female grappler Areana Villaescusa—who on July 15 earned a silver medal in Maracaibo, Venezuela, where she participated in the 2012 Pan American Cadet Women’s Championship—will also compete with the best boys Arizona high schools have to offer at Tim’s Toyota Center in Prescott Valley.

This, for the most part, though, is not your typical state wrestling preview story—like I said.

This is five feature stories on five remarkable young men and a young woman, also known as The Four Horsemen And One Pony, who were working their tails off Tuesday with head coach Brad Beach in The Microwave, otherwise known as The Rio Rico High Hawks Wrestling Room when I last bumped into them. (Thank goodness these beasts didn’t bump into me, right?)

Villaescusa, 4.12 GPA, who was the only one allowed to talk about the W-word (wrestling) because it’s her first time qualifying for the state meet against the boys.

“I was just thinking, finally this is my time,” she said. “I’ve been working really, really hard this year and I finally got in—and I feel like I can go far, so I’m going to try my best at state.”

Now onto who she is off the mat …

“I think of mostly school; I focus a lot on my schoolwork,” she said, adding some thing about the W-word, which is the fact that she’s leaving for Sweden Tuesday for a week-and-a-half camp and competition (http://www.klippansbk.se/).

When forcefully veered away from the W-word again, though, she said, “I like to spend time with my family. Every now and then I’ll go out with a friend or whatever, but it’s mostly about my family.”

For Villaescusa, that includes outdoor thing like fishing, camping and hiking.

“I’m going to go this summer and just have some fun,” she said. (Like sweating your BUTT OFF in The Microwave isn’t fun??)

“I’ve been wanting to become a surgeon or a neurosurgeon for a long time,” she added about her future career goals, “and I would like to got to school in Colorado to be near the (Olympic) training center, but I may transfer out and go to an Ivy League (school) if I can.”

Another future surgeon—albeit a much bigger, tougher, meaner-looking brute—just might be Penniston, 3.944 GPA, 19th in his class.

“I’m a guy. I just like to hang out and do guys stuff,” he said. “I like to paintball. It’s a lot of fun to go shirtless (when you paintball). It sorta hypes up the adrenaline a lot; it’s a pretty big rush.”

His next rush, though, will be going to the University of Arizona so he can learn to cut into people better than Howard Stern.

“I like to help people, and I just think that sorta stuff’s neat,” Penniston said. “It’s pretty cool to get in there and see how the body works.

(I think he’ll figure out how the outside of his opponents’ bodies work this weekend, while he’s slamming the poor souls against the mat, but that’s another story to come on Tuesday …)

Then there’s Jeong, 3.0 GPA

“All I think about is school, homework and … homework,” he said with a chuckle, “because school is more important; it’s THE MOST important thing right now (even more so than the W-word).

“I was thinking about getting into a career in stocks, maybe,” he added. “Something small … but you got to be good with numbers and college. I just got to get it done.

(Like he has on the mat so far.)

Chavez, 3.0 GPA

By the way, Pablo’s dedicating this state meet to his two military veteran brothers, who have recently served in Iraq and Afghanistan in the U.S. Army, but let it be noted that Chavez was wearing a U.S. Marine Corps T-shirt at practice.

“I like to fit all the time,” he said, looking as thick as the sidewall of a military bunker. “I don’t like staying home and doing nothing or watching TV. I go run and keep myself fit. I want to keep my mind on other stuff like school.

“I like to help others, too,” Chavez added, talking about helping area youth learn the W-word.

Chavez also wants to graduate from a university and have a career in criminology or law enforcement.

“I don’t want to just stay here,” he said. “I also want to travel. College is very important to me; to keep moving forward.”

That may just land him in the Air Force or Army, like his military police brothers Jonathan (27, Iraq) and Ramses (22, Afghanistan).

“It’s just a tradition,” he said when asked about the USMC T-shirt, “both my brothers were in the Army, so I’d like to follow the same steps (despite the shirt I’m wearing).

“They also wrestled,” he added. “That’s why I’m in here in the first place. I’m trying to prove to them that I can take state; the first one in the family, so taking state is very important to me.” (Likely more important than a bone is to a hungry Rottweiler, from the look in his piercing eyes.) “It’s my dream to become a state champ. I’m working hard for it.”

The last guy has also been working real hard—and has a lot to show for it …

Lopez, 4.0 GPA

“I like to work out. I’m very hyperactive,” he said. “I like to find a way to get rid of all that, so working out just drains me—and I’m very competitive; especially with myself and I like to push myself beyond my own limit.”

The same can be said for the sorry foes he faces on the mat, so good luck to them this weekend … they’ll need it.

Anyway … “I’m hard on myself with everything I do,” Lopez said. “I try to make sure I’m perfect. I’m more of a perfectionist. I like to have things when they’re perfect. I like to do things to the point where it’s perfect; where it’s routine; where I don’t have to think about it.”

When his W-word career is over—however long that may be—Lopez said he wants to use his college education in the field of computer engineering.

“It’s a little challenging,” he said, “but that’s what I’ll need when I’m not wrestling. Body and mind. I’ll need that challenge just to keep me going. Without challenges I don’t know what I’d do.”

Legendary Hawk head coach Brad Beach, who wouldn’t reveal his high school GPA, even for a free six pack (of Coca Cola, of course), knows where Lopez is coming from—and he said as much when The Task Master was drilling his star pupils on Tuesday in The Microwave …

“Some of them have the ability to wrestle Division I. Some of them have the ability to wrestle D-II,” he said of his 2013 prime crop, “and that’s if they want to. It becomes a job, 24-7 at the collegiate level. It’s all about winning. There’re no blue ribbons if you lose.”

Beach also went on to mention that they’re all “great students,” as evident of the GPAs above, “And the main thing I went to see them do,” he said, “is get out of this community; whether it’s a trade school, the university or the military; go out there and represent this program.

“We taught you about hard work. We taught you about where it can getchya, and that’s life,” he added. “If you outwork your opponent in school, you’re going to get a higher GPA and more scholarships. You go to (a job) interview and you outwork your opponents, you get the job, so it all transgresses to the hard work ethic.”

Beach goes on to say that he tells the kids to not be afraid to leave Arizona, because of the possibilities and culture that the rest of the country and world offer.

“There’s a short period of time when you can travel and you can meet new people and see different places and cultures,” he said. “Usually that time goes from 18 to 25 years old, so if you get a chance, go. And as a parent that has a kid on the east coast (Dakota Beach, RRHS graduate who is wrestling for the Naval Academy now), it would be selfish of me as a parent to hold these kids back from experiencing that.

“It is hard to let the reins go,” he added, “but all of them have the potential … and if they continue to take what we preach in (The Microwave); being respectful, having integrity, having the discipline and hard work, it’s just going to equal success later on in life.”

Beach finally said his kids, although highly decorated, also get beat up a lot over anything less than first, so heartache is still there when things don’t go their way.

“That also carries over, because in life you’re gonna fail,” he explained like David Carradine, “but all of them have tied their shoes and got in that weight room and back in this room to become the best—and some dreams just might be broken this weekend. Time will tell!”

(Postscript: When the dust settled, the team earned runner-up honors (second place). Jeong, Lopez and Penniston all won state titles, while Villaescusa went 1-2, and Chavez (2-1) took sixth place. After Chavez's first loss in the semifinals, the youngster passed out and was taken to the hospital where he received three IVs and tests for high sugar and acid levels in his blood. He returned to the arena but did not participate any further. He is okay.)