St. John Bosco wrestling phenoms are stealth weapons

Moisture, condensation, fog -- whatever you want to call it -- has made it impossible to peek through two windows on the door of the St. John Bosco wrestling room to see what’s happening inside.

Then the door opens, and a visitor is blasted with a burst of hot air as if a heater is going full throttle.

It’s sauna-like conditions, and yet there’s no machine producing the heat. It’s coming from more than 20 shirtless, sweating wrestlers circling the room and trying to prove what Coach Omar Delgado means when he says, “Wrestling is a six-minute sprint. You go as hard as you can for six minutes.”

In the middle of the action are two brothers, Anthony and Zahid Valencia. They’re freshman phenoms. Zahid is ranked No. 1 in the state at 106 pounds. Anthony is ranked No. 1 at 126 pounds. Zahid is 20-0 with four tournament championships. Anthony is 29-4 with three tournament championships.

They set their alarm clock in their bedroom for 4 a.m. and end up in the family garage, which has its own padded wrestling room. Soon they head to the gym to complete two hours of training before school begins.

To say the Valencia brothers are passionate about wrestling would be an understatement.

“They want to be four-time state champions, want to wrestle in college and they want to be Olympians,” Delgado said.

They have big dreams and are determined to make sure no one works harder.

“We want to get better than everybody else,” the 5-foot-4 Zahid said. “We can’t give anybody an inch.”

Said the 5-7 Anthony: “I’m working out, getting better, knowing nobody else is doing what we’re doing.”

Their father, Ruben, is an assistant coach at St. John Bosco. The brothers are in the same grade because Anthony repeated the fourth grade. He’s 15. Zahid is 14. They are best friends and keep producing accomplishments that leave Delgado in awe.

“This is probably the most unique situation that I’ve come across in 20 years of coaching high school and college wrestling,” he said. “Two boys that are freshmen that are this good.”

Zahid and Anthony both won their divisions earlier this year at the prestigious Doc B tournament in Clovis, earning them praise and cowboy hats that they put up on the wall in their bedroom.

They’ve been wrestling since they were in kindergarten. Their physical stature hardly identifies them as potential future state champions but it only adds to an advantage they gladly accept if an opponent underestimates them.

“They don’t look like athletes at all, and I always tell them, ‘That’s to your benefit,’” Delgado said. “Everyone looks over and they think they can beat them. They look like 98-pound kids. They look like cross country runners.

“Everybody who looks across that mat and says, ‘That’s the No. 1 guy in the state? Oh, I’ll beat that guy.’ As the match progresses, you’ll see their conditioning kick in. They always wear everybody down and end up pinning most guys or winning by technical fall.”

The brothers are just starting their high school wrestling careers, but there’s little doubt wrestling is going to be part of their lives for years to come.

“I just love it,” Zahid said.

“I get excited, especially if it’s a good opponent,” Anthony said.

Delgado believes the boys are uniquely prepared to excel in the sport.

“The endurance it takes is completely different from any other sport, where you have to go six minutes as hard as you can,” Delgado said. “How many guys can do a six-minute sprint? Not many. These boys can do it.”

Eric.sondheimer@latimes.com

Twitter.com/LATSondheimer