BILLINGS — Another heavy wrestling turnout at Billings West High School has the Bears chasing a third straight Class AA state title with the 2024-25 season now underway. Scary thing is, head coach Jeremy Hernandez said this team may be even deeper than last year’s.
“You know, they’re so deep the competition in this room is insane. You know, they’re hungry and they want to be the guy,” Hernandez told MTN Sports.
And he’s actually talking about incoming freshmen hungry to be the guy.
“(They’ve) been through our club since they were 4 years old and they’ve been through the system and they know what the expectations are,” he continued.
The expectations are to tighten their grip on the team trophy. Another win would make it five total state championships for the Bears, who also won in 1994 and 1974.
While they lose four-time individual champ Keyan Hernandez now wrestling at the University of Iowa, Zach Morse is back as Montana’s only male chasing his fourth, along with junior Makael Aguayo who can three-peat.
“I wrestled all summer long so I was really getting better at mainly bottom. I think I had some trouble with bottom last year and I’ve been focusing a lot on that,” Aguayo said before a recent practice.
He's jumping weight classes from 132 pounds to 138 and said he feel like this year it gives him an edge.
“I wasn’t huge by any means (last year). I’m a lot bigger and can actually cut down to the weight this year so I think it’s going to help me a lot,” Aguayo said.
Senior Anthony Garcia is additionally motivated wrestling at 190 pounds. He couldn’t shake an illness and, personally, wasn’t thrilled with his third-place finish last February.
“I was really sick last year so hopefully I can win this year. (It was) pretty frustrating. I was mad for a long time,” Garcia said.
West returns 17 state tournament qualifiers and if they Bears remain healthy and deep come February 2025, look out.
“The thing about the state tournament is, you can have two guys in one weight class. So, I could take two 144-pounders to the state tournament, and they could both make the finals. I’ve never had that happen, but anything is possible,” Hernandez said.
