Franklin High School students and best friends Haely Lemus (senior) and Jocelyn Rojas (junior) have both advanced to the 2024 CIF State Wrestling Championships, with Lemus bringing home the CIF Los Angeles City Championship title.
Born into a family of athletes in Highland Park, Lemus said she started out at Franklin High playing soccer, but transitioned to wrestling when her friend told her that she was aggressive enough to do wrestling. Lemus said that during her first day of practice, she managed to pin down all the other girls who were trying out for the team.
“I think that’s what made my coach think ‘She has potential,’” Lemus said.
According to wrestling coach Tony Hayes, before winning the CIF Los Angeles City Championship, Lemus had already racked up 33 wins this year.
“She’s the best wrestler in our room — boys, girls, doesn’t matter. Of the 30 kids on the mat any day, she’s the best one,” Hayes said.
Hayes said that along with Lemus’s natural athleticism, she also has laser focus and a strong work ethic.
“Her mental toughness and her focus is unbeatable,” Hayes said. “It doesn’t matter if she’s seen the move 100 times. She’s going to be locked in, trying to perfect it.”
Hayes said that Rojas is one of the toughest kids he has ever coached.
“She just has that never say die attitude, like ‘I’m gonna keep fighting until the final whistle,’” Hayes said.
Hayes said one thing he loves about wrestling is that anyone can be a great wrestler, with Rojas being a great example of that.
“[Rojas] is not super tall, and if you put her on the track she wouldn’t be the quickest, but she’s tough as anyone and she put in the work.”
According to Hayes, as soon as Rojas and Lemus became practice partners, the pair were inseparable. Hayes said that Rojas and Lemus both push each other to be better athletes and are each other’s biggest supporters during matches.
“She’s made me so much better,” Rojas said. “She made me who I am right now.”
Lemus has been to the State Championships before, but said she is glad that Rojas is joining her this time.
“The first time I went I was alone,” Lemus said. “Now I have a drilling partner, and a roommate.”
As women in a male-dominated sport, Rojas and Lemus said they both have experienced certain challenges throughout their student athlete career. Rojas said that when she first told her mom that she was joining wrestling, her mom responded by telling her that it was a sport for men. Despite this, Rojas said that it was empowering to see other women doing the sport.
“I saw many [female] college athletes, and I was like, ‘whoa, that’s pretty cool, I think I’d want to be like them,’” she said.
Lemus said that one of the challenges of having a male coach is that he is unable to physically show certain moves on the girls as he is able to with the boys, but that Hayes was able to adapt quickly.
“It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was gonna be, it was actually really chill,” Lemus said. “He’s understanding and supportive.”
Lemus said that she owes a lot of her success in wrestling to Hayes.
“If it weren’t for [Hayes] coming to this school and bringing wrestling, I wouldn’t be here,” Lemus said. “I wouldn’t be going to state. I wouldn’t be known in Highland Park.”
Rojas said she is thankful for Hayes’s dedication, as it has fostered her own enthusiasm for wrestling.
“I think the reason why I fell in love with wrestling is because [of] the passion he had for it,” Rojas said. “Watching him love the sport made me love it even more.”
Hayes said that Franklin High’s robust girls wrestling program owes itself to Beat the Streets LA, an organization that seeks to make wrestling programs more accessible to the youth in Los Angeles and surrounding areas, according to its website.
“They donate a ton of our shoes; both of our girls went to Chicago last year — all expenses paid,” Hayes said. “They go to sleepaway camps, like they went to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo for a whole week. Those things take them to the next level [and] without Beat the Streets LA, that wouldn’t be possible.”
Hayes said that Beat the Streets LA puts as much emphasis on their girls teams as they do for their boys teams. For example, he said that they take girls and boys to the same amount of tournaments each year.
“My philosophy is that I’m a follower of [the] best wrestlers, and our girls team seems [to have] our best wrestlers this year,” Hayes said.
Lemus said she wants people to know that wrestling is not about winning but about the journey.
“[It’s about] the experience of what it’s like to be on a mat — just you and someone else — and everyone watching,” she said.
Lemus will be wrestling at East Los Angeles College starting Fall 2024.
Contact Michelle Teh at teh@oxy.edu
