Eric Gonzalez is the head coach for both the boys and the girls teams at Cedar Valley. He does segregate his wrestlers but not by gender but rather by ability and experience level. So the top level boys and girls practice together while the less experienced wrestlers practice together.

“I don’t see gender,” said Gonzalez. “When I look at kids I see a wrestler. Good wrestling is good wrestling in my opinion. There are intricacies and different techniques of course but good coaches will do it for any kid, whatever the gender.”

He pulls this off by using an athletic conditioning class that meets every other day. On the days it meets, the experienced wrestlers practice during the athletic period with the less experienced wrestlers coming in after school. If the athletic class does not meet that day, one group will practice in the morning while the other will go right after school.

This method seems to make a lot of sense versus what is most often done with boys and girls having their own separate practices based on gender. By separating by ability, the more experienced wrestlers get to work on more elaborate techniques and this also allows the less experienced wrestlers to get extra attention on the fundamentals.

“We don’t split them as a result of gender, we split them on the basis of experience,” added Gonzalez. He also said that when some of the wrestlers progress, they will change groups.

As for coaching both the boys and girls at the same time at a 6A meet where he is dealing with two dozen athletes, Gonzales relies on his staff and keeps his head on a swivel.

“To be honest, I rely on my assistants and I have a great staff,” said Gonzalez. “We have 10 coaches total between the boys and girls. I get around as best I can and obviously there are some big matches where I try to get there for sure.”

When Gonzalez arrived at Cedar Valley four years ago, the school didn’t really have a girls program established while the boys struggled out of the gate. But because girls wrestling was sanctioned in 2021, in essence it meant that all programs started more or less in the same place and the vast majority of female wrestlers were inexperienced. Therefore, with a committed coach who knows his stuff, it didn’t take long for the Aviator girls program to take flight.

However, the most successful boys programs have youth feeder programs and the experience level between the competing wrestlers is quite vast. Because the Cedar Valley boys program was behind the curve when Gonzalez arrived, they haven’t progressed as quickly as the girls program which has placed second in 5A state in both 2023 and 2025 and third in 2024.

5A Boys: After the first day of competition it looks to be a tight race between Box Elder (95.5), Spanish Fork (88) and Wasatch (84.5) for the team title. Each school suffered some upsets in the first round.

Spanish Fork’s Taegen Leavitt (120 pounds) upset Box Elder’s Conley Evans 7-1 in one quarterfinal but the Bees turned the tables when Adrian Gambino (126) defeated the Dons’ Kyler Spencer 4-2. Then Wasatch’s divisional champion Logan McNally (157) was stunned by Alta’s Cash Vigo losing by pin, This opened the door for Spanish Fork’s Ryker Cuff as he beat Vigo to advance to the semifinals. To each wrestler’s credit, they have stayed alive in the tournament and if they win tomorrow they will place in the top six.

As fate would have it there is just one head-to-head match-up between the three schools in the high point scoring semifinals and that’s when Wasatch’s Jonah Ware meets Box Elder’s Christian Miller in a bout at 165 pounds.

5A Girls: After Day 1, Salem Hill (93) holds a slim one point lead over Wasatch (92). Box Elder (84) is in third just a mere half point advantage over Northridge (83.5).

One of the big stories was that Maple Mountain’s Sage Eggleston (130) had to withdraw from the tournament due to illness. Eggleston was a returning state champ with just one loss on her record. A beneficiary of this could be Wasatch as Marabelle Brown moved to the top side of the bracket and has a much clearer path to the top of the podium.

Still, Brown will have to get past Salem Hills’ Kelseigh Banks in the semifinals. Banks won a state title in 2024. And another big Salem Hills vs. Wasatch semifinal clash will occur at 115 pounds when Wasatch’s Maisey Blaser takes on Salem Hills’ Hannay Coyne.

Delayed Start: The traffic along the I-15 corridor has gotten pretty thick these days. So thick that a big share of 6A teams didn’t get to the arena in time for the scheduled weigh-in Wednesday. This caused the weigh-in and skin checks to be pushed back and competition got going an hour late.

With the next two days having one classification wrestling in the morning and early afternoon and another finishing in the evening, any delays could be problematic. Last year on Thursday, the tournament didn’t complete until late in the night and because of restrictions on bus driver hours, many teams were forced to stay an extra night. And coaches that teach had to scramble to find subs and students missed an extra day of school.

Tracking the Results: Many of us older types remember when Coca-Cola introduced the new Coke. People weren’t pleased and Coke Classic was invented for those that liked the original version.

With that said there are a few ways to track the results. Track Wrestling has created a partnership with Flo Wrestling. The platform formatting is a bit different and has caused frustration for fans. If you go in as a “Viewer” on Track Wrestling, you will be kicked to the Flo Wrestling platform. But if you go to “Viewer Classic” you can keep track of things in the original Track Wrestling forum.

Choose either version and you should be able to see the team and individual results of the 5A and 6A meets. Due to the late finish of the 6A tournaments, the article covering the final day of these tournaments will be in Saturday’s hard copy paper.