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By Jay Spivey

For the Clemmons Courier

Senior Victoria Pioquinto might be diminutive, but she packs some strength on the West Forsyth girls wrestling team.  

At just 100 pounds, and in only her third season of wrestling, she competes in the 100-pound weight class for the Titans. Not knowing anything about the sport until her sophomore year, she’s quickly climbed the ranks of what is a relatively new sport in North Carolina.  

Although girls had been wrestling at some schools across the state, girls wrestling wasn’t sanctioned by the North Carolina High School Athletic Association until the 2023-24 school year. 

“My first tournament was at (Southern Pines) Pinecrest and I had won my first match because I’m pretty sure the other girl was also a beginner,” Pioquinto said. “But then, I lost my other two matches because they were more experienced. But I think it was awesome, honestly. It helped me learn to be humble, like very quickly.  

“It taught me how to deal with losses and not be disappointed, but to motivate you to get better.” 

Pioquinto, according to her and flowrestling.org, won the championship this past Saturday at East Forsyth in the Turner Invitational against teammate Selomith Narcia. Pioquinto defeated Narcia by fall at 1:08. 

“It took me almost until the end of my sophomore season to start getting the thing of like the new moves,” Pioquinto said. “I wasn’t yet like able to put them altogether. I wasn’t able to think about it during my matches, but I knew the moves. And so I was just going off of muscle memory most of the time.” 

Pioquinto didn’t wrestle her first year at West Forsyth.  

“My freshman year I tried to try out for volleyball, but I didn’t make the cut,” she said. “And my sophomore year I was just a soccer manager and then, I joined wrestling.” 

Much like many other things in life, she started wrestling two years ago because of a peer.  

“I picked up wrestling because my friend was a manager and so she invited me to go to a duel after school,” Pioquinto said. “I stayed and I watched like the girls wrestle, and I was like, ‘Oh, my goodness. That looks kind of fun.’ So, I decided to join.” 

Not making the JV volleyball team at West Forsyth, as it turned out, might have been the best thing that could’ve happened to her. 

“I was honestly very disappointed, but I think it made me realize that I need to be putting in more work and more effort into like the things that I set my mind to,” she said.  

Jason Hooker, who stayed as a teacher at West Forsyth the whole time, has returned as the boys coach at West Forsyth after a one-year hiatus, is always looking for people to wrestle. Alex Gobble is currently the girls head coach, but Hooker helps him. 

“I recruited her out of the hallways,” Hooker said of Pioquinto. 

Despite her zeal to wrestle she was very raw as a wrestler.  

“She just had good character,” Hooker said. “She is a very good person.” 

It’s all coaching for Hooker.  

“I do it just like I do the boys teams,” he said. “You’ve just got to teach them the basics. As they get better, we turn it up.” 

As Pioquinto has improved, she has seen more mat time. However, some schools don’t have any 100-pound girl wrestlers.  

“She’s got quite a few matches,” Hooker said. “We have actually two girls of the 100-pound weight class.” 

By the of her sophomore year on the West Forsyth girls wrestling team a little light started turning on in her head. 

“Like 50-50 because I knew I wasn’t the best,” Pioquinto said. “I hadn’t made it past regionals. But I knew that if I really worked hard to like want to pursue something in wrestling that that was the chance to do it.” 

Ever since that moment, Pioquinto has taken the bull by the horns, so to speak. 

“I had to get ready for my strength because I wasn’t really as strong as I needed to be in order to go against more experienced girls,” she said. “As well as I needed to learn a lot more skill and had to work more fluid throughout my matches because I was still very choppy.  

“And it really wasn’t flowing for me. So, I was just trying to practice that.” 

Hooker started a faith-based non-profit wrestling club called Transformation by Discipleship (TBD), which Pioquinto is a participant, at the Activity Center at Immanuel Baptist Church. 

“That really helped a lot to be honest,” she said.  

Hooker was working with TBD after he stepped down as the head coach after the 2022-23 season. 

“It’s mainly for at-risk youth and kids that can’t afford to go to pay money at big clubs or whatever,” Hooker said. “So, we just give them the opportunity to, three times a week. And, you know, we just have some dinners and have some clinicians come in there and teach. Just give them an opportunity that otherwise they wouldn’t have.” 

Last season was tough for the girls and boys wrestlers at West Forsyth. Timmy Allen was hired to be the boys wrestling coach after Hooker resigned, and Tony Hairston was named the girls head coach. However, Allen was diagnosed with kidney cancer early on which limited his ability to fully coach the team. Allen resigned this past spring and is now at North Davie Middle School. Hairston also left and is the head wrestling coach at Wheatmore High School in Trinity.  

“(Allen) would put us in group meetings, and for practice, we would all get into a circle, and he would like explain to us all,” Pioquinto said. “And I mean, he was the head coach of like the boys, as well. And that’s when we just began to start like being friends, friends who got along better with the guys, too.” 

The girls and boys wrestlers at West Forsyth bonded from the tough experience their coach was going through. 

“When we heard what (Allen) was going through it was very sad,” Pioquinto said. “And like, it affected the team a little bit because we were like worried about how he was going to do, like the well-being of our coach. Like, that matters to us. It was just a little sad, but then he got better and we got better.” 

Pioquinto, according to flowrestling.org, made it to the NCHSAA Midwest Regional last season as a junior, but she lost her two matches. 

“All of them move on a little bit with just improvement with experience and time and maturity,” Hooker said. “Timmy did a good job with them last year, and Tony.” 

Wrestling wasn’t the only thing Pioquinto did. Despite her disappointment on the volleyball court, she did go out for the girls soccer team this past spring.  

“I played a little as a kid, but I decided to try out my junior year because I didn’t try out my sophomore year because I was sick,” Pioquinto said. “But I decided to go out my junior year, and then I made JV. But I think that was a nice learning opportunity and helped my stamina and cardio for wrestling in the offseason.” 

For many who play a JV sport as junior, there is a certain stigma attached to that. Not for Pioquinto. 

“Honestly, I was happy because viewing varsity that was really, really competitive,” she said. “But I don’t think I would’ve liked it.” 

The experience on the JV soccer team was a good one for Pioquinto. 

“Everyone on the team was amazing,” she said. “The cardio and conditioning was awesome. So, I think it really helped to build me into the athlete that I am today.” 

Also, according to flowrestling.org, Pioquinto is 6-2 in this, her senior season for the Titans.  

“If she keeps this work ethic, she’s, you know, one of her losses is to a boy,” Hooker said. “So, the other one is to a girl from (Charlotte) Olympic, who’s pretty tough. You’ve just got to be physical back with that girl.” 

The girls team has matches scheduled during the Christmas break, plus there is still plenty of season remaining.  

“I think I’m improving fairly fast and doing good,” Pioquinto said. “I’d say the only con would be that I, again, get my strength up.” 

Even though she is more than proven herself on the mat, she still has some naysayers.  

“In fact, nobody would ever expect for me to wrestle until I tell them that I wrestle,” Pioquinto said. “And they’re just like, ‘You don’t seem like the type that would do that. Like, you’re so small. I’m sure that like you’re doing well and all that stuff.’ 

“I just have to say, ‘Yeah, I am (a wrestler).’” 

And Pioquinto has big goals the rest of the season. 

“I want to accomplish qualifying for states,” she said. “And hopefully, if I can, become a state-placer.” 

That’s quite possible, according to Hooker. 

“I think she has a chance to place,” he said. “She needs to set her goals a little higher.”  

Pioquinto has pretty much eliminated the possibility of playing soccer for the Titans this coming spring. 

“I was thinking about it, but I’m probably not going to,” Pioquinto said. “I would say right now because my priority is wrestling. And I don’t really have the time to train to get better at soccer, as well. So, I guess time management isn’t really going to work out for me.” 

Her high-school wrestling career will end in February. And graduation is scheduled for May. 

“It’s been very welcoming,” Pioquinto said of wrestling. “I always know that it’s a place that I can go back to if I ever feel like lost or not in the right place.” 

Pioquinto, who has a 3.1 GPA, is also heavily involved with JROTC and wants to go to Wake Forest. UNC Charlotte and UNC Greensboro are her backup schools.  

“I want to major in biology so that I can go into dentistry,” she said. “(Wake Forest) also has a really good ROTC program that I want to attend because that’s also what I want to do after high school is like join the military.”