On an early summer afternoon last week in Philomath with dad at her side, 12-year-old Olivia Hernandez digs into a cup of ice cream. It could’ve been any kid of that age enjoying a treat while on a Friday excursion with a parent.
But to characterize Olivia as a typical 12-year-old might be a stretch. Wearing a red USA Wrestling T-shirt, Olivia has a lanyard with a large medal hanging around her neck that reads: “United World Wrestling … U.S. Pan-American Championships.”
Yes, Olivia loves to wrestle. In a sport that has seen great advances among girls in recent years, including here in Oregon, this Philomath youngster has been dominant in her age group and weight class.
As Olivia put herself, “I have a passion for the sport.”
Her dad, Sal Hernandez, explained.
“The art of wrestling is there’s a lot of movements, a lot of technique, a lot of things you’ve got to learn,” he said. “Seeing her wrestle, it’s like an art form for her because she’s learned so much from so many folks.”
Olivia’s journey in wrestling began at the Philomath Mat Club under the guidance of coaches Mark Woosley and Jeremy Robertson. Then she developed further through the coaching of Jason Lara at Mat Sense Wrestling, a Corvallis-based club program.
“We’ve been really fortunate that Jason has really focused on technique,” Sal said about Lara, a former wrestler who had success in the sport at Oregon State. “We’re in a unique location. You have the OSU wrestlers who work with and you also have Jason, her coach. You have all of these young, great athletes that train you.”
The list includes OSU’s Sergio Montoya, DJ Gillett and Brandon Kaylor and Purdue standout (and Crescent Valley graduate) James Rowley.
Olivia said that she’s learned a lot about “chaining” her moves together while in battle. This involves a strategic, predefined sequence of moves designed to gain an advantage. Many top wrestlers master those types of skills.
“I love wrestling because you get to just do your own stuff instead of going off a book and you have to do this, this and this,” Olivia said, pounding her fist down on the table in front of her. “For different people, you wrestle differently. You do your stuff and then you’re just reacting to them.”
Long-distance running has been a tradition in the Hernandez family — older sister Hannah Hernandez runs at OSU — but wrestling is also taking hold among Sal and Marty Hernandez’s kids.
“I have five brothers and Benny — he was the first to wrestle and then everybody else started wrestling and I asked my parents,” said Olivia, who was only age 6 when she got into the sport. “I was young and didn’t know anything but I was gritty and was like, ‘I’ve got this, I can do this.’”
Sal admitted that he was against her wrestling in the beginning but the Mat Club’s Woosley and Robertson convinced him to allow her to try. She borrowed a singlet to compete in Harrisburg for her first tournament — Sal keeps video of it on his cellphone.
Olivia qualified for the Pan-Am Championships out of a tournament at Spokane, Washington. After winning nationals for the second straight year, Olivia took first in the qualifier by defeating an Arizona wrestler in two straight matches in a best-of-three series.
The pair had met the first day during the nationals tournament.
“The first day, she scored on me a couple of times and I pinned her,” Olivia said. “The next time, I went straight to my attacks and I was controlling her instead of her doing her stuff like she did the day before. So I wrestled her and I rolled her five times and then there was a tech and the second time, I pinned her.”
Olivia said her American opponent in the qualifier was a tougher match than anything she saw in El Salvador. As it turned out — she didn’t know it at the time — Olivia won with a fractured finger.
The trip to El Salvador was Olivia’s first-ever trip out of the United States. The venue didn’t matter — she had a perfect showing at the June 13-15 tournament.
“No one scored on me and I went undefeated,” she said.
Competing in the U15 division, Olivia was one of five wrestlers in the 39-kilogram (86 pounds) weight class with two from Mexico and one each from Panama and El Salvador. Two wins came on pins and two others by superiority. She outscored her four opponents combined by a 34-0 margin on technical points.
“The first match, I had a Mexico girl and sometimes I’ll read them for 10 seconds … and she was flat-footed and on her heels, so I knew I’d just blast through her,” Olivia said about the match, a victory by pin.
Olivia won the gold, Mexico’s Katia Ramos Espinosa took the silver and Mexico’s Citlalli Garcia Alvarez earned the bronze. The other two competitors were Aida Ledezma of Panama and Gabriela Jorge Torres of El Salvador.
Team USA’s female wrestlers won nine gold medals and overall had a 37-2 combined record. All 37 wins did not go the full 4 minutes and were bonus-point victories with 14 pins, 21 on technical falls and two by forfeit.
Another second wrestler from Oregon competed at the Pan-Am Games — Carson Langford, a 14-year-old from Dallas. Langford was a double gold medal winner with his Greco-Roman and freestyle performances at 85 kg in the U15 division.
Earlier this year, Olivia had perhaps her finest moment on the mat when she won the Reno Worlds, which is one of the toughest national youth tournaments, and was named most outstanding wrestler. Among her other accomplishments was receiving all-American honors at the Heartland USA National Elementary Duals in Iowa. Olivia’s only losses over the past year were to boys.
Olivia continues to work out during the “offseason” — last week she trained at OSU and also got in some 1-on-1 time with coaches. The next regular season for wrestling will begin in November. Olivia hopes to return and represent Team USA at next year’s World Championships.
As far as the far-off future, it’s difficult to know what women’s wrestling will look like by the time Olivia graduates high school. There may be a path there for her in the sport but for now, she has one goal in mind.
“I want to go to Philomath High School because I want my name to be on the wall,” she said, a reference to the PHS wrestling room, which has a list on the wall of wrestlers that have placed at state for the Warriors. “Benny’s name is on the wall and I’m going to try to be the first girl on the wall.”
At the rate that Olivia seems to be progressing, it’s almost a given that she’ll someday see her name join those others in the wrestling room.
