Clovis Unified schools and wrestlers dominated the mat at the CIF Wrestling Championships over the weekend as Buchanan High and Clovis East took the boys’ and girls’ titles, respectively.

Of the 28 boys’ and girls’ wrestling divisions, 10 had a Clovis Unified student on the final mat. Five of those wrestlers took home gold at Bakersfield’s Mechanic’s Bank Arena.

Finishing her three-peat, Clovis East senior Isabella Marie Gonzales took gold in her 120-pound division, defeating Granada High’s Si Martin. Gonzalez’ win comes after a fifth-place performance with Team USA in summer 2024 in Amman, Jordan.

Junior Rocklin Zinkin from Buchanan defeated Poway High’s Edwin Sierra to take gold in the 120-pound division. Rocklin Zinkin took first last year as a sophomore in the 113-pound division.

Nikade Zinkin, a senior at Clovis High, defeated Buchanan’s Joseph Toscano in the 144-pound division final. Nikade took first in 2024 as a junior in the 126-pound division.

Christina Estrada, a sophomore with Buchanan, overwhelmed Jillian Wells, a senior from Lakeside High, 14-2, for the 100-pound title.

Clovis High junior Leilani Lemus dominated Kayleen Tuavao, a senior from Tokay High, 19-7, at 170 pounds to also become a three-time state champion.

It was the ninth state boys’ championship for Buchanan, which totaled 247.5 points to eclipse Poway (240) and Gilroy (239).

Clovis East’s win comes as the school has been building out their girls’ program. The Timberwolves totaled 84.5 points to crowd out Northview (77) and Buchanan (68).

“All three girls are huge leaders in our room, I would say we attribute a lot of their success to the work ethic,” said Wrestling Director Josh Bustamante. “The girls come in constantly, I mean, every day — ready to work, no distractions. They’re super focused, laser focused, on achieving their goals.”

Clovis East’s Three Competitors Outshine the Field

Where most schools will bring about eight girls for their team, Clovis East brought three, Bustamante said. Each pin and each win adds to that school’s tally, pushing it further in the team category.

But with only their three girls, Clovis East took the big prize against schools with more than a dozen competitors.

On the way to Bakersfield, they talked about how pins would accelerate the team more than just a win by points. Every win from the three girls came by pins, Bustamante said.

As a freshman, Sophia Marie Gonzales, Isabella’s sister, took third. Jaelyn Unpingco went from taking sixth in 2024 to taking third. Her third-place win was against a girl she lost twice to last year.

“All of her matches prior to that loss she had in the semifinals were all pins as well, which is a big portion of why we ended up coming out on top as team champions,” Bustamante said. “Every single win that we had this weekend was by pin.”

Even With a Title, Tirapelle Knows What Needs to Improve

Buchanan High returned to its wrestling glory after losing the No. 1 spot to Poway High School in 2024. For the seven years before that, Buchanan won the team title.

“We were able to dig deep and accomplish what wanted to accomplish,” Buchanan head wrestling coach Troy Tirapelle said. “I don’t think it was our best tournament overall in the way of performance, but I do think that it mattered to the kids. When the going got tough, we got tough enough to get what they wanted out of it.”

For the kids, the biggest victory meant taking a blank piece of paper — a reminder of what Tirapelle wanted them to win last year — off the wall. With combat sports, training becomes so grueling that a competitor’s biggest goal is to get it over with, Tirapelle said.

For the last 12 practices, he hangs up a piece of paper for each day. And at the end of each day, they remove one. But when they didn’t win in 2024, that final piece of paper stayed up. They brought that paper with them to the tournament, and after everything quieted down last Saturday night, Tirapelle hung that paper on the wall so they could ceremoniously remove it.

“I think that was the biggest cheer we got from the kids,” he said.

Tirapelle wants to work on the kids’ strategies and mental toughness for next year. While proud of their accomplishments, he said there were matches they should have won.

“We gave away some matches we could have won by just not finishing, period — thinking time’s just going to run out and you kind of relax,” Tirapelle said.

Clovis East Star Secures Scholarship to University of Iowa

At high level wrestling, training doesn’t end with the offseason, Bustamante said. Isabella Gonzales demonstrated that.

She qualified in 2024 to compete on Team USA. She traveled to Amman, Jordan in August that year to compete in U17 World Championships, taking fifth place.

The gold medal win at the CIF championship marks her fourth appearance at the state’s top meet and her third gold. Bustamante said the senior secured a scholarship to  the University of Iowa, where she’ll compete for one of the country’s most successful Division I wrestling programs.

“She’s no slouch to hard competition, she looks forward to that,” Bustamante said. “She wants to go compete against the best to prove that she is the best.”

Buchanan Looks Ahead to Next Season

With a lot of juniors and freshmen on Buchanan’s team, Tirapelle expects to have a strong 2025-26 year.

Freshman Jax Vang took fourth in the state in the 106-pound division. Having seen what Vang could do, Tirapelle knew the freshman could do better than he was. It took convincing to remind him of his skill. It worked.

“Into day two and day three of the tournament, you could just see a change in his shoulder shape, his demeanor,” Tirapelle said.

Gold-medal winner Rocklin Zinkin had a much more dominating showing this year than in 2024. That year, for Zinkin’s final match it took triple overtime for him to beat out his competitor — the same one he faced this year. This time, he got it outright, winning 7-2.

Senior Paris Ruiz placed seventh in 2024, but after cutting weight, he made it all the way to the finals mat, securing silver as a ninth seed.

“We knew he always in there, he kind of wrestles unorthodox. He’s always got a puncher’s chance,” Tirapelle said.

In his first appearance at the state championship, junior Ivan Arias came back after losing a match he was expecting to win.

“It shows a lot of grit and toughness,” Tirapelle said, “what we’re trying to get through — the idea of youth wrestling to learn life skills.”