NCAA College Preview Series: #3 Colorado Mesa
Photo by Antonio Clark courtesy of Colorado Mesa Athletics.
Derek Levendusky with Travis Mercado
Colorado Mesa enters their fifth season ranked #3 in the NWCA preseason poll. With nine returning All-Americans, they’ve set high standards and are aiming high for national and post-season results. Here’s a chat with head coach Travis Mercado.
What are your reflections on last season?
We have done an amazing job the past few years of being consistent with our performances at the National Tournament. Six All-Americans last year is a tremendous accomplishment, especially with the ever-changing and growing landscape of NCAA women's wrestling. Those six All-Americans and the other 13 national qualifiers helped us finish in the top 5 for the third straight season. Last year’s National Tournament was so much fun with the parity amongst teams and regions. We ran into some travel issues with flight cancellations that barred us from competing at the National Duals, but I was extremely proud of how we performed throughout the year. Something that tends to get overlooked is the NWCA Scholar All-American awards and Scholar Team Award. For the second time in four years we had the highest team GPA among all NCAA schools (and all women’s wrestling programs) and the most scholar All-Americans of all collegiate programs.
Talk about your returning class. Who are some of the women you have high expectations for this year?
We are returning nine ladies that have earned All-American honors this season and three others that have qualified for the NCWWC tournament. This returning class is hungry to continue our quest for a national championship. Red shirt junior Marissa Gallegos leads the group of returners. A 3x All-American for the Mavericks, she is looking to claim that elusive National Title after finishing 3rd last year at the NCWWC tournament. Jayleen Sekona, who had one of the best runs at the national tournament last year is looking to pick up where she left off at last year’s tournament. I’m excited to have her and 2020 All-American Isabeau Shalack in the line-up as we will have two of the best 191 pounds in the nation in our lineup and competing for a national title. Jennesis Martinez and Dalia Garibay both return to the lineup after redshirting last year. Martinez has finished 3rd and 4th in her freshmen and sophomore years while Dalia was a national finalist in 2019. Having them back in the lineup dramatically changes the landscape of our team. The Washington trio of Claire DiCugno, Holly Beaudoin, and Tatum Heikkila look to improve on their first NCWWC appearances. Lastly Lizzie Miller, who fell short of repeating as an All-American, has come into the room with a fresh outlook for her senior year and has been fun to watch this fall.
Talk about your incoming freshmen class and/or transfers. Who are you excited about and what are some of the names that you expect an immediate contribution from?
For the 4th straight year we have had a Top 10 recruiting class. We have six girls coming in that were ranked in the final USAW HS girls rankings. Starting at 101 pounds we have Isabella Morales coming from Toppenish, WA, a 2x state champion and 2019 Cadet WTT and 2019 Fargo runner-up, she’ll add some great depth to 101 pounds and I know that she’ll find a way to a podium finish in March. At 116 pounds we have Israel Resendez from Denver, Colorado. Israel “Izzy” capped off her high school career by being a 2x Colorado State Champion and 3x state placer, she is exciting to watch wrestle and I know that once she starts getting more freestyle matches under her belt she is going to compete with some of the top girls in the nation. At 130 pounds Hailey Chapman, a 3x state placer in California has competed at some high level competitions throughout her high school career capping off her high school career with a top 8 placing at U23 World Team Trials, taking some of the veteran college girls the distance in many matches. We brought in two excellent athletes at 143 pounds with Jada Llamido and Celina Cooke. Jada is 2x state champion and 3x placer from Florida while Celina is a 3x State Champion in Nevada. At 155 pounds we have Aynslee Hester from Washington, a 2x state placer in Washington. Aynslee had one of the best freestyle seasons this spring amongst all the incoming girls. She started training with a different club and that has greatly changed her approach to wrestling and her impact in our lineup will be tremendous in the middle upper weights. This entire freshmen class is very competitive and that has really made training this fall a lot of fun. Their energy and excitement to contribute to our program and our program’s goals has been contagious for the team.
How do you feel about your preseason?
Preseason has been great this year. We have taken a little different approach than the past few years as we have more upperclassmen than before that can help lead the team in different ways. Lots of emphasis on strength and conditioning portion of our training with Coach Carson Pipher leading our strength and conditioning efforts. Most importantly we as a group kept instilling our core values and working on competing in everything that we are doing.
Talk about some of your team's goals this season. Are there any specific events you're excited about?
The goals are the same every year, we want to go out and compete at our best every time we step on the mat. We are going to focus on the process specifically our effort and attitude and the results will show. I feel confidently that this team will show up in March ready to compete for individual national titles in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I’m always a fan of National Duals. It’s a great event that the NWCA puts on and the energy with the teams competing against each other is always so much fun. Our men’s team was invited again after finishing 5th last year at National Duals and a second straight top 10 performance at the individual tournament, so having both teams there will make for a fun trip where both teams will be there to support and cheer each other on. We also have our home opener on Friday November 4th and I cannot be more excited to share our championship program with the campus community as well as the Grand Junction community. It’s exciting to have another RMAC team which generates a lot of excitement as the community knows that other school as we compete against them in other sports across all three seasons.
How can we not be excited about the NCWWC Region Championship and the NCWWC National Championship? The past two years we’ve traveled to Lebanon, Illinois for our regional tournament, so being able to host this year is a great benefit to our team and accomplishing our team goals. At the beginning of the year I shared a picture of the Alliant Energy Center in Cedar Rapids with our team and posed the question who will be there wrestling in March. It is awesome that those working for women’s wrestling (the Executive Committee/Championship Committee/Leadership Group/ NWCA/etc.) made it happen with our national tournament being in a neutral site, in a big arena just like men’s NCAA Championship. It’s been way overdue for these ladies to have this experience and showcase for the National Championship.
What are some things you've built into your program that you credit for the success you've had so far?
Some of the things that we have built in to our program that I would credit our success so far have been:
1. Having a Growth Mindset: We talk about how every match, training session, mental training is an opportunity for growth and a way to learn something new.
2. Effort and Attitude > Results: I talk a lot about it’s not about winning and losing. I try to instill this idea into the ladies that you don’t win matches solely on your skill, your strength, and your intelligence, rather you win based on your effort to utilize all of those and more.
3. Practice Gratitude: Something that I remind the team daily is that gratitude is the best attitude. By being thankful for the opportunities and finding the good in everything that is placed in front of us, even the bad, we can approach competition with the energy to compete at their highest level
4. Want it More: This one’s funny because I just said it wasn’t about winning and losing, but in order to “win” you have to want it more. What does that mean, it means giving your best effort, having the best attitude, being grateful for the opportunity to compete. No one steps on the line thinking I’m going to let them win this one, so we have to want it more than the other person.
5. Don’t Fight Negative Thoughts, Replace Them: I had this giant stop sign in my office for a while as a metaphor to stop negative thoughts, but over time I started to reflect that thinking about stopping the negative thoughts only kept us in this continuum of negative thoughts. We’ve been talking about replacing the negative thoughts with positive thoughts. Acknowledge the negative and then move forward with the important thoughts that are crucial to giving you your best attitude and effort.
6. Don’t Be Afraid to Lose: This coincides with the idea that it’s not about winning and losing (effort and attitude), Growth Mindset (always learning and looking to improve), and wanting it more. If we are believing in these values we are more willing to take risk in order to score points. There are no mistakes only learning opportunities.
7. Be Proud Regardless of Results: I love this team and these athletes. I’m very competitive person and dislike losing, but at the end of the day I am always proud of them and what they did or DIDN’T accomplish. They are some of the best girls in the nation, a small percent of girls wrestle at the collegiate level and an even smaller percent accomplish being an All-American and National Champion, but those that approach the sport with gratitude and show up to perform have accomplished so much more than they could have if they didn’t approach life with these values.
Who are some of the personalities in the room that are providing leadership and shaping your culture?
Marissa Gallegos, Jennesis Martinez, and Dalia Garibay are all in the fifth and fourth years respectively and have been with the program from the beginning. They really step up in a way that they let their performance and training speak volumes of what can be accomplished when you buy into the program’s values. Claire DiCugno emerged as leader after her freshman year. She’s probably the most vocal in helping guide the younger girls and keeping the energy high.
8. Anything else you'd like to mention?
It’s amazing to see where NCAA women’s wrestling has gone just the past few years. To think that nine years ago I started coaching at the collegiate level with 20+ universities across all levels and now we are upwards of 100+ with NCAA, NAIA, and Junior Colleges. I can speak for our team that we are excited to start competing in three weeks.
Colorado Mesa starts action on November 4th at home against Chadron State.