Williams Towers Above the Crowd

Joe Williams thought long and hard about what he wanted to accomplish in the wrestling season and figured he should aim high.

He decided he would go for an undefeated season. A lofty goal for the 171-pound junior from Santa Ana Calvary Chapel High, but not high enough for his coaches.

“They said I need to set my goals a bit higher,” Williams said. “I was like ‘What do you mean higher? I want to win all my matches.’”

Calvary Chapel Coaches Joey Coughran and Jake Harman told Williams he should try to make it through the season without getting taken down.

“It hit me pretty hard at first,” Williams said. “But my sophomore year I didn’t really give up too many takedowns and same with my freshman year. I went into the season thinking maybe I can.”

It didn’t last long. In his eighth match of the year, in the third round of the Reno Tournament of Champions, Williams was taken down. In the finals of the same tournament, he was taken down again and lost the match.

After that, Williams went undefeated in his final 28 matches to finish 38-1. Along the way he won the state title, the Southern Section Masters tournament, the Southern Section Northern Division tournament and the Five Counties tournament--all without getting taken down.

Williams is The Times’ wrestler of the year.

“After Reno, I had to adjust my goals a little bit,” Williams said. “At Reno, it was in the back of my head, but it’s dumb for people to worry about not getting taken down. After that my mentality kind of changed. I wasn’t worried about people scoring on me, I was just worried about what I could do on them.”

And he could do plenty.

At the Five Counties Invitational, among the more prestigious tournaments in the country, Williams had four consecutive pins. At the Masters meet, he pinned three opponents in less than three minutes.

At the state championships, he pinned his first opponent in 1 minute 10 seconds, then won his next four matches by a combined score of 26-2, giving up only two escape points.

Despite the relative ease with which Williams cruised through his weight class, the season had its share of low points. Williams suffered a small muscle tear in his shoulder during the Reno tournament and missed two weeks of action.

At the state tournament, he was poked in the eye, dislocated a finger and felt a pop in his knee.

On top of that, his team, the two-time defending state champion entering the season, was thumped by 50 points in a dual meet with Bakersfield and lost two key wrestlers to injuries. It began the Masters without a tournament victory for the season.

But Williams persevered, as did Calvary Chapel, which finished fifth, highest among Southern Section schools at the state meet.

“When bad stuff was happening, I was sad for my teammates, but the worst thing to do is mourn over your losses,” Williams said. “You’ve just got to keep on plugging forward. I just stayed focused on what I needed to do to help my team and help myself. That’s how you get through a season.”