Daily Journal Girls’ Wrestler of the Year: Burlingame’s Lauren Aguilar

Still, there was disappointment. The forthright Aguilar had set out to bring home a state championship, a goal that did not come to fruition after she posted a 6-2 record in Bakersfield.

“Everything I speak and I preach is something I want to do, so not achieving that state championship that I’ve been gunning for for a long time, it actually made me sad,” Aguilar said. “It really upset me.”

In a season hampered by injury, and a state tournament shrouded in controversy, Aguilar took one of her longest breaks from the sport. The weeks to follow for the usually fun-loving competitor brimming with confidence were uncharacteristically quiet and introspective.

It was two weeks later when she returned to the training room, where her perspective was brought full-circle. Aguilar went home not to Burlingame, but to the Serra mat room, base of operations for the Peninsula Wrestling Club, her club team for the last six years. Prior to that, she had wrestled for the Coastside Grapplers in Pacifica, but even then was tagging along to Serra with her father Giovanni, who has coached at PWC since she was a toddler.

Upon being greeted by the youth wrestlers she’s helped coach at PWC throughout her high school career, Aguilar was instantly uplifted by the meticulously planned reception she received.

“I was still shown an immense amount of love by the people in my community, and at the end of the day that made it all worth it,” Aguilar said.

The inspiring reception was well deserved at the end of an extraordinary senior season and a trailblazing varsity career. Through four varsity seasons — three as a transfer at Burlingame and one, as a freshman, at Capuchino — Aguilar complied a 115-15 career record. She opened her senior year with 21 straight wins before finishing 51-6.

Aguilar finished her career as the only San Mateo County wrestler to bring home CIF state hardware from Bakersfield. Now, she has been selected as the Daily Journal Girls’ Wrestler of the Year.

“Even though I didn’t achieve the goals I wanted to, I felt there was a lot of other goals I achieved in it,” Aguilar said.

While historic by Burlingame’s standards, Aguilar’s state-podium run wasn’t exactly a surprise. Certainly not to head coach Ernesto Nunez, who saw it coming since Aguilar’s initial appearance in the Central Coast Section postseason in her first season with the Panthers.

“Her sophomore year, we were at the CCS Northern Regionals,” Nunez said. “It was the first year they had it, and we were in the semifinals against the Milpitas girl, and it was a hard-fought match. L.E. got thrown ... but [she] fought hard off her back, came back, threw her, pinned her. And that match was really sentimental because I had never had a wrestler ... that had that much grit and that much fight. I knew right then and there she was going to be a state placer.”

Coming from a long family line of wrestlers — her older brother Josh at Cap; her older sister Kailyn at Cap and Burlingame, and now at Bakersfield College; and even her mother April a former varsity grappler out of Hayward’s Tennyson High School — Aguilar always had ambitions of greatness.

While she tempered her approach this season, Aguilar never tempered those ambitions. The senior got out to a hot start, claiming four straight titles at the Roger Briones Tournament at San Leandro High; the Dennis Solis Classic at Castro Valley; the Brittany David Invitational at Liberty-Brentwood; and the Queen of the Mat tournament at Pittsburg, where she was literally crowned with a tiara on her 18th birthday.

Then, after suffering a knee injury Jan. 11 at the Napa Valley Classic, the remainder of her regular season, on paper, was somewhat underwhelming. She even skipped the final week, and a chance to win a second tiara, at the Goddess of the Vine tournament at Clayton Valley-Concord.

“It definitely was a huge transition to take a step back ... where in times past, regardless of how I felt, I would have wanted to wrestle in that tournament,” Aguilar said. “So, I think it was a huge step of maturity for me ... because I really took the time to allow myself to recover and be healthy.”

Aguilar proved healthy in the postseason. After winning the Peninsula Athletic League title at Woodside with a breezy 2-0 record, she soared to a CCS repeat with six consecutive tech falls before winning via forfeit in the championship finals at the CCS Masters Tournament at Independence-San Jose.

At the state finals, Aguilar opened with a win via first-period fall over Monache freshman AlexAndrea Corona, before running into No. 3-seed Savina LaGrass, a junior out of Hillcrest, in the second round. Aguilar suffered a blow to the head with a violent mat return against LaGrass, and went on to suffer a 17-1 loss via tech fall. Then, in the consolation bracket, Aguilar won three straight — a second-round pin against Warren senior Ariele Cazares; an 8-4 decision against Corona junior Itzel Herrera; and a 10-5 decision over Benicia senior Svea Gonzalez in the blood round.

Then came the controversial showdown with Poway junior Ava Ebrahimi. Aguilar went on to lose by a 13-9 decision, but watching Ebrahimi’s hand raised in victory was a surreal sight after Aguilar had been signaled the winner via fall at the start of the second period. It was a dizzying few moments as Aguilar executed the pin, the referee’s whistle blew, and both wrestlers got to their feet and removed their ankle cuffs.

“Me and her were about to shake hands ... and the head ref looks back at the observing ref ... and he calls it an illegal hold,” Aguilar said.

The controversy stemmed from an illegal head-and-arm hold. Nunez said, after reviewing video, he saw Aguilar’s slightly elevated hold and why it was called, but that the observing referee should have assertively communicated with the head referee while the match was ongoing.

“It was crazy,” Aguilar said. “I was standing in the center while all the coaches were talking and there were people in the crowd booing. It was crazy just to be in that match.”

“It sucked,” Nunez said. “It was heartbreaking for us to watch that go down. But all the fans had her back.”

In losing the controversial match, Aguilar dropped to the seventh-place match, as opposed to advancing to the consolation semifinals with a chance to place as high as third. What was doubly disappointing was it proved to be last match of the senior’s varsity career, as her opponent in the seventh-place match bowed out via medical forfeit.

“I wanted to wrestle, I wanted to go to the match,” Aguilar said. “It was a little bit of a bittersweet feeling because I didn’t get a chance to wrestle that match but, at the same time, it was a chance to take care of my own health.”

In the weeks to follow, a contemplative Aguilar looked to the future. As a member of California USA Wrestling, she will look to earn a shot on the freestyle national stage this summer at the USA Wrestling Junior Championships in Fargo, North Dakota. She is also actively weighing her options to wrestle collegiately, with several offers on the table.

Still, it took walking back into the Serra mat room, two weeks after the end of her Burlingame career, to remind “L.E.” why she loves the wild and tumultuous world of wrestling so much. There were her young students, a dozen or so of various ages, smiles rekindling every step of Aguilar’s wrestling journey, lined up in two rows to greet her in a celebratory procession.

“It was very awesome,” Aguilar said, “and they all made a little tunnel, and at the end of the tunnel there was a little sign. ... It was really sweet. It was really heartwarming.”