Salida High School has a new wrestling coach, Ben Sanchez! Sanchez grew up in Washington state, which explains why he is a die hard Seahawks fan.  He already had family in Salida–which led him to ending up here in 2020. 

Sanchez wrestled throughout highschool and college, getting multiple offers from colleges when he graduated from highschool. He opted to go to the United States Merchant Marine Academy, a military school that offered a good engineering program. 

Sanchez has coached through all levels of wrestling, even helping coach in some college programs. He is an assistant wrestling coach here at Salida High School and the head coach of Salida Middle School. 

The number of students that tried out for wrestling this year was exponentially greater at the middle school level. They had 16 athletes, and he hoped to get more. This was by far their best turnout in a while.   

The high school had 16 wrestlers finish this season, and they ended up getting some new people involved in the team. Three wrestlers made state, and sophomore Sam Johnson received a medal for 5th place in his weight class. Sanchez said that his goal for the season was to get all three qualifiers a medal. He noted that he would like to coach the team for years to come and build a program that is one of the best in the district. 

“When I went to high school, my team was a top 40 school in that state and I would like that here,” Sanchez said. 

As well as being the new wrestling coach, Sanchez is also the new math teacher at Salida High School as well as an assistant coach for the SHS Spartans football team. He looks forward to several years of teaching math and coaching  athletics at Salida High School.