Rancho Bernardo’s Mary Snider described her two losses in last year’s state wrestling championships succinctly.
“I got destroyed,” said the Broncos junior.
Two things could have been a result of the setbacks — she could have been discouraged and quit or she could have used it as motivation to do better. Snider chose the latter.
“I was happy just to go to state,” Snider said. “It showed how far I’d come but when we looked at the 140-pound brackets, my first match was against the No. 1 seed (Gianna DiBenedetto of Bella Vista). She pinned me (in 1:30).
“Then I wrestled back (winning two matches) and in the blood round got destroyed again (getting pinned by Bakersfield Foothill’s Autumn Joven in 4:29). I was placed in the bracket against the top seed because one of our section’s other qualifiers, Olivia Davis, was the No. 2 seed.”
The setback to Joven was her last loss, leading to 85 straight wins. So far.
Included in her streak are championships at the Goddess of Olympia Tournament at Olympian, the Goddess of Victoria at University City, the South Bay Classic at Eastlake and most recently the Sierra Nevada Classic in Reno.
“From the state meet on, I’ve focused on every practice, every lift in the gym,” said Snider, who still finds time to carry a 4.06 GPA, taking a pair of AP classes. “After the losses, I just wanted to go out and wrestle. It motivated me to win.
“I discovered I learned the most about how I could improve in the practices, where I got beat up, wrestling against my partner, Maisen Desco, other girls in higher weight classes and against the boys. Wrestling boys is hard because they are stronger, but I learned how to deal with that. I learned to be ready the second I stepped on the mat.
“State was a learning experience. You are under pressure to perform against the best wrestlers in the state in front of a huge crowd. Everybody — wrestlers, parents, coaches and recruiters were watching. It was daunting.”
Snider was involved in Ju-Jitsu from the time she was eight years old, but it certainly didn’t portend her success in wrestling.
“I was never as good at Jiu-Jitsu as I am wrestling,” she said. “I didn’t take first place once, I just did it for fun. I didn’t have the level of commitment you needed to be good at it. But I think it did help me technically and mentally.”
Snider went out for volleyball as a freshman, planned on wrestling and then swimming in the spring.
“I wanted to try as many sports as I could,” she explained. “But once I wrestled, I didn’t think about swimming or any other sport again. A few weeks into the wrestling season, coach (Joe Terribilini) said he wanted to make us a good team. He said we needed to be committed and I really liked that.”
Terribilini liked what he saw as well.
“As a freshman she bought in to the program,” he said. “She never missed a practice. She’s so well-rounded that she’s one of our captains where she leads by example.”
Last year she rolled into the Division 1 championships where she lost to Granite Hills freshman Lucille Ledesma 10-3 before going on to the Masters meet where she placed third with a 12-10 sudden victory over Olympian’s Vania Victoria to qualify for state.
At the Goddess of Olympia earlier this season, she faced Ledesma in the 145-pound championship match where she avenged her section loss with an impressive 4-1 decision. She expects Ledesma and possibly another state finalist to be in the Queen of the Realm Tournament in San Marcos this weekend.
She started the season ranked No. 7 by CalGrappler but those ratings haven’t been updated.
And if she loses somewhere along the line?
“It would be emotionally taxing but there is always a hungry girl out there who wants to come and beat me,” said Snider, who wants to continue wrestling in college where she plans to major in mechanical or aerospace engineering.
So, her future includes becoming an astronaut?
“Oh no, I want to keep my feet on the ground,” Snider said. “I just want to help build the stuff, not go up there.”
