Wrestler of the Year: Half Moon Bay's Emilio Bautista

For a Half Moon Bay team that sent a program record seven boys’ wrestlers to the CCS championships, however, it turned into a fairytale season for Bautista, who — while still hampered by injury — claimed the CCS 120s title. And in doing so, Bautista joined an elite Cougars fraternity, becoming just the third wrestler in program history to capture a CCS title.

For Half Moon Bay coach Sam Temko, the first-ever Cougars wrestler to win a CCS crown, that made picking the top performance from Bautista’s highlight reel an easy task.

“Going into CCS championships not at 100 percent but able to battle with the best guys in the section and come out on top,” Temko said. “I think that speaks volumes about his character and his persistence and his desire to win and be a champion — that warrior spirit that you can’t really teach.”

A fighter’s background

Bautista was born a fighter, studying karate and aikido as a boy. But he got serious about honing his martial arts skills in middle school when his cousin EdRey Casamina — also a senior wrestler at Half Moon Bay this year — asked him if he’d be interested in joining a local jujitsu dojo.

“He had wanted to fight when he was in middle school and I liked fighting since I was a little kid, so he told me about martial arts, and I was like, ‘Alright, I’m down,’” Bautista said.

Bautista embraced the discipline, branching out into kickboxing while working his way up to a blue belt in jujitsu. And the cousins would meet another future Cougars wrestler in the process, Evan Marschall, who had more experience in the jujitsu and kickboxing realms than Bautista and Casamina combined.

The trio formed a nucleus that, in five years time, would become the most decorated Half Moon Bay wrestling team in history. Upon entering high school, however, wrestling — for Bautista — was merely a way to stay in shape while honing his martial arts skills. That perspective changed by the end of his freshman season though, as he began to recognize the likeminded wrestlers who arrived at Half Moon Bay the same time he did.

“What makes this group of seniors so special, I think it’s a matter of their camaraderie and their likeminded-ness,” Temko said. “So they always had the idea that they wanted to be champions. They wanted to train year-round. And they were all kind of on the same page with that and they were all willing to do what it takes to take it to that next level and to become a CCS placer.”

It took Bautista time to adapt to the mannerisms of wrestling though. Temko recalled Bautista’s early days as a varsity sophomore, when he’d start every wrestling match with a martial-arts bow — a custom that traditionally does not carry over to the wrestling domain.

Whereas one hypothetical effect of such a greeting could leave an opponent wondering if he was about to get taken out by a roundhouse kick — yes, an illegal move in wrestling — Temko said there was no intimidation factor to Bautista’s bows.

“I think it was almost more of the opposite,” Temko said. “Like, here’s this little guy. He’s kind of short for the weight class. He’s coming out here smiling, bowing to me. And then as soon as the match starts he’s just tossing kids around.”

Bautista kicked the bowing habit by the start of his junior season, by which time the core Cougars wrestlers were poised for big things. The group would lead the Cougars to back-to-back Peninsula Athletic League titles in 2015 on ’16. This was Bautista’s goal from the outset of his junior season. And more so, he was out to earn respect throughout CCS.

“I always felt like we’re hard workers,” Bautista said. “Even though we’re a small town, we wanted to put our names on the map for Half Moon Bay and get noticed. So, I think the group of seniors all worked hard and we pushed each other to get our name up there with the other really good schools in the section.”

Battling through injury

After wrestling in just two regular-season matches following his injury, Bautista paced himself for a postseason for the Half Moon Bay history books.

But it didn’t come easy.

Even through the PAL championships — where Bautista became one of eight Half Moon Bay boys to advance to the CCS championships — he was able to protect the injury. But as his practice workload increased going into the CCS championships, he had to fight through the pain.

“During CCS, I had to wrap it up every match,” Bautista said. “The more I continued on, the more it would get sore and start hurting. … By the time the CCS finals came along I had to suck it up. It was really painful to move and I just had to keep on going.”

It was just another in a long line of examples that made Bautista one of the driving forces of Half Moon Bay’s wrestling exploits. Quiet by nature in the everyday mix of Cougars practices, he was more one to lead by example on the mat, according to Temko.

“Emilio has always taken a really lead-by-example role,” Temko said. “He’s not too vocal but he does the right things and he does the things you want to see all the guys doing. He shuts his mouth and works hard and he leads by example.”

Battling through five wins at the CCS championships, Bautista endured a dramatic 4-3 win in the title match to defeat Felipe Duenas of Sobrato in a 4-3 win.

“It was a great feeling just being part of history at Half Moon Bay now,” Bautista said. “Being one of those guys — I’m the third person to win CCS — once I won, I was so surprised. … I was just so excited about winning.”

In earning a trip to the state championships by virtue of his win, however, Bautista wasn’t nearly as excited. Sure, he anticipated the chance to compete at the state level. He even won a match in posting a 1-2 record. He called that victory the highlight of his season.

What took the sheen off the trip for Bautista was that none of his Half Moon Bay teammates qualified for the state championships, sending him alone into the belly of the beast of the best wrestlers California has to offer.

“Being the only guy, I felt pretty sad because I could only go to the event by myself,” Bautista said. “I wanted someone to come with me. … It didn’t feel right. If they had come along and competed with me, it would have been a much better feeling.”

Cougars’ sacrifice

Half Moon Bay’s signature hairstyle became the team’s calling card. The core wrestlers, including Bautista, began bleaching their hair during their junior seasons. But it was this season the look became an unofficial part of the Cougars’ uniform, a rally cry to the PAL, according to Bautista, that Half Moon Bay was poised to repeat as league champs.

The bleached-blonde look is synonymous with Half Moon Bay culture, but is more akin to the Coastside city’s proximity to the beach. Not that Bautista and his teammates would know it after dedicating themselves to holing up in the Half Moon Bay mat room every day to put their school on the map.

“Looking back, there were so many times we could have just left and then had fun at the beach,” Bautista said. “But we sacrificed our fun for becoming champions.”

The Cougars’ camaraderie made it a tough pill to swallow that Bautista was the only one on the team that earned a bid to the state championships. After all, it was the team concept of Half Moon Bay’s approach — in a sport known more for individual competition — that made the whole thing go.

“Most wrestling teams, it’s just being selfish and thinking about yourself — how far you’ll get on your own,” Bautista said. “But I felt like our team, we really had faith in each and every one of us to do great and perform great. We had each other’s backs to make sure we did our best and perform our best. So, our team is pretty solid. We have good chemistry, especially varsity.”

Bautista and the core Cougars are still competing on the club circuit, with the Greco-Roman style state trials beginning in May. Meanwhile, Bautista is deciding between three current colleges where he will look to prioritize academics — Cal Poly-Pomona, UC Santa Cruz or Long Beach State — where he wants to pursue a major in engineering or physics.

While he may pursue a club wrestling spot in college, his place in Half Moon Bay history is set in stone. Along with Temko (160-pound CCS title in 2003) and Joey Wilson (152-pound CCS title in 2006), Bautista is one of the three most distinguished Cougars wrestlers in HMB history.

“We have pretty good legacy as far as our wrestling program goes in having CCS placers and having guys go to state,” Temko said. “But to win the CCS championships is a huge accomplishment in itself. That’s a hard thing to accomplish. So we’re proud of him for doing that.”