When Valeria Pesantes moved to the U.S., she was admittedly unaware about the sport of wrestling.

When she attended the season’s open gyms, she fell in love with being on the mat. 

“My freshman year I tried out for gymnastics but it wasn’t really my thing,” she said. “Once I went to the open gyms I fell in love with the mats and it clicked for me right away my first season and I knew I wanted to do the sport.”

Pesantes will graduate this year as one of Elk Grove’s greatest wrestlers. She finished 4th place at IHSA State and will continue her wrestling career at North Central College. 

Getting to that point wasn’t without its fair share of hard work.

“I started doing my training more often, started a nutrition program, took my lifting workouts more seriously and got extra reps and practice whenever I could,” Pesantes said.

Pesantes’s head coach Kelly Cortez said that Valeria’s improvement demonstrated that she is much stronger, more confident and more skilled than she was when she started her wrestling career.

“Valeria went from knowing nothing about the sport to becoming a 2-time state qualifier, a state placer and a two-time MSL champion,” Cortez said. “She’s a great example of how putting in effort every day can turn someone from a beginner into one of the top athletes in the program.”

Her leadership also created some momentum for the program.

“As a freshman and first year wrestler I have never seen someone like Valeria ever before,” freshman wrestler Elyssa Chan said. “The sheer amount of grit she possesses for the sport for the passion she has for the sport it was amazing to watch her be around.”

Although Pesantes has grown as a wrestler, she’s also only getting started.

“Training doesn’t stop when practice is over, every choice you choose to make determines your goal,” she said.