Athlete of the Week: El Camino’s Mikaela Contreras

This season was different. There was no overwhelming the El Camino senior, much in part to her new training partner, EC senior Trinity Diokno. And Contreras, the Daily Journal Athlete of the Week, rode her new regiment all the way to a dominant day of her own, earning the CCS girls’ championship in the 131-pound division Saturday at Independence High School.

“From the day that she came into the room, after (reaching) state last year, it was her intent to do exactly this,” El Camino coach Rey Reyes said. “She was in a new environment, so we knew we had to do things different. So, we were intent to give her the best opportunity.”

Contreras capitalized on the opportunity and made El Camino history in the process. Her title is the first contested CCS championship in the history of the girls’ program.

In 2010, the first year of the CCS girls’ wrestling tournament, El Camino’s Yanira Ramirez won the individual title at 235s, though she was the only competitor in the weight class and won via five bye rounds to default to the championship.

Contreras did it the old fashioned way, battling through four matches to reach the pinnacle of the podium. She earned pins in her first two matches against Del Mar’s Alicia Rosengarten and Silver Creek’s Adaugo Nwachukwu. Then Contreras went conservative, winning a 5-3 decision over North Monterey County sophomore Valeria Ramirez in the semifinals. She then outlasted Menlo-Atherton junior Anna Smith for a 4-0 in the title match.

“Definitely playing defense,” Contreras said of her strategy after taking a lead in the championship match. “I had a 4-0 lead, I just wanted to play it safe. That’s really not that many points if you think about it … and I knew she was probably just getting frustrated near the end, so I just wanted to keep my lead going.”

The risky move was in leaving for El Camino to begin with. Terra Nova had long been the more competitive program. In 2018, the Tigers took fourth place in the team competition. El Camino finished better this year at 16th as a team. But of its 56 points, Contreras earned half of them. If you take those points and add them to Terra Nova’s 28th place finish with 28 points, the two teams would change places in the standings.

Transferring was a sensible move, though, as well as a sentimental one. Reyes, as a varsity wrestler at Riordan, was coached by Contreras’ father JC, who was in the house Saturday night in San Jose.

“Obviously we were surprised,” Reyes said. “She had a long tenure at Terra Nova and she did well. But we lucked into it, I suppose. The good thing is it was a fit.”

Contreras’ brother Zach also wrestled at Riordan, where he was a three-time CCS boys’ wrestling champion. This served as the inspiration for her to take up the sport as a high school freshman, she said.

“Just seeing him when I was younger really motivated me and inspired me,” Contreras said. “And, I was like: ‘You know what? I can be a CCS champion too.’”

Contreras will have company for the CIF State Wrestling Championships starting Thursday at Rabobank Arena in Bakersfield. Her training partner, Diokno, also snagged a bid to the state tournament, taking third place at 111s. Diokno earned a 7-5 decision over Aptos junior Camila Barranco in the third-place match.

And while Contreras is shooting for the second state podium finish of her career — she took sixth place at the state tournament as a sophomore, but fell just short of the podium last year with an eighth-place finish — the rest of her senior season is gravy, as they say, as she has already etched her name into the El Camino history books.

“I don’t like to get cocky or anything,” Contreras said. “I’m just going to do my best. And whatever happens, happens.”