Blaine senior Victor Gervol has only been wrestling for three years.
The three-sport athlete – football in fall and rugby in spring – joined the wrestling team his sophomore year for the same reason lots of kids do something new: His friends were doing it.
Gervol said during his first year on the mat, “I didn’t really know what I was doing.” Be that as it may, the sophomore still won first place at both districts and regionals, earning the one-seed in the 2022 state tournament, where he went 1-2.
His junior season, Gervol made a deep run in the Mat Classic, earning second place in the state’s heavyweight division.
Gervol then lit up the schedule during his senior season, winning 36 of his 37 matches, yet again earning first in district and regional tournaments. Gervol attributes his rise in success to head coach Tom Hinz, his teammates (seven of whom will join him in Tacoma), and an intensive one-week wrestling camp he attended over the summer.
Hinz convinced Gervol to travel to northern Idaho to attend Kaizen Intensive Camps, a nearly 24/7 wrestling camp with a schedule that Gervol said began at 5 a.m. and didn’t end until 10 p.m.
The constant focus on wrestling, fitness, dedication and listening nightly to motivational speakers from the highest echelons of the wrestling world inspired Gervol to attack his senior year with tenacity.
“That pushed me to what I am and who I am today,” Gervol said of the camp. “That’s just helped me a lot throughout the season, for sure. I always have the mentality of getting better and helping my teammates around me get better as well.”
High school wrestling is a hybrid, morphing between team sport and individual sport. In duels and tournaments, teams are scored based on the head-to-head performance of each individual wrestler in a weight class, added up. If one wrestler pins someone, it’s on the next guy up to keep up that pressure on the other team, Gervol explained.
That mix between individual accountability and team chemistry is one of the things that Gervol said hooked him to the game.
“Wrestling is unique because it’s not only just an individual sport, it’s a team sport,” Gervol said. “You get a lot of camaraderie just celebrating with your team, and it’s a sport where everyone is wrestling not for themselves, but for each other.”
Gervol isn’t the only star on this team. The Borderites will send another seven wrestlers to the two-day Mat Classic XXXV on February 16 and 17: Chris Zamudio, Cole Voigt, Vinnie Saia, Daniel Johner, Cal Fitzgerald, Blake Goltz and Otto Shelton.
Saia, Goltz, and Shelton all finished second in the regional tournament after standout seasons. The last time a Blaine wrestler placed first in the state tournament was 2017 when Saul McGallon won the 220-pound division, according the Blaine Athletics.
“If I win it, I win it, but it’s more or less about how my teammates are going to do. I really want them to succeed as well,” Gervol said. “I want it to be a team thing. Say that I win it – everyone wins it in my mind, because everyone was there to support me and they’ve been with me the whole season.”
There are many people who have inspired Gervol along his journey through this newly-discovered sport, namely his friends and family, Gervol said.
Gervol said two individuals stand out as his mentors and motivators: head coach Tom Hinz, and friend and fellow-heavyweight teammate Otto Shelton. Gervol said Shelton was the friend who ultimately convinced him to join the team in the first place.
“I’d like to give a big shout-out to my buddy Otto Shelton,” Gervol said. “He’s been there with me the whole ride. He’s a really good friend, teammate and just a bud I’ve been with for a while now. And he’s pushed me as well.”
As for Hinz, Gervol said the structure and culture that the head coach has built at Blaine helped him go from not knowing what he was doing, to the precipice of a state championship.
“[Hinz] is always just helping me out, setting goals and pushing me to my farthest,” Gervol said. “[He’s] always been there for me and I think of him as my biggest mentor apart from my family.”
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