All or nothing for Radford wrestler Peralta

Imagine feeling overwhelmingly sad, but when you go to cry, no actual tears come out.

It happened to Radford wrestler Angela Peralta at a tournament in Las Vegas, when she missed making weight by 1 pound.

“It was my sophomore year and it was the hardest thing I have had to do,” said Peralta, who wrapped up her fourth Oahu Interscholastic Association championship Saturday. “I was at 145 pounds and had to cut to 130, I wasn’t eating full meals for weeks. Just snacks and stuff and meal replacements and was still overweight. I was running upstairs and had to stop to cry, but nothing was coming out of my eyes. It was the worst experience of my life.”

For all that sacrifice, there has been ample reward. Aside from the four OIA titles, Peralta is the defending state champion at 145 pounds and will try to repeat this weekend.

“States is what really matters,” she said moments after her win Saturday.

States (at Blaisdell Arena on Friday and Saturday) is the next thing on the list, but there will be more. Peralta will go to Menlo College (Atherton, Calif.) on a wrestling scholarship. She plans to study business and marketing, and on the wrestling side, the goals are lofty.

“Hopefully I can win nationals in college — that’s the main goal — and I want to possibly make the Olympics in 2020,” she said. “Not sure how I’ll do yet.”

Tough road ahead

Peralta is not taking anything for granted and knows getting there will be far from easy.

“It’s all or nothing. It’s really difficult,” she added.

She has the full support of her parents, Rick and Edna of Ewa Beach, and her brother, Brian, a two-time state wrestling champion who is attending Oregon State and powerlifting.

“Whenever he’s home, I wrestle with him and he beats me up,” Angela said.

Rick Peralta puts Angela through the same workout regimen he did with Brian.

“She’s a hard worker and dedicated,” Rick said. “Practically everything I tell her to do she does without arguing, and I know I put her through hell with training. She’s a tough one and I appreciate her work and am going to miss her when she leaves.”

Charles Ariola, a former Radford coach, is Peralta’s club coach with the Ku Lokahi Rams. Joe Weldon is her coach at Radford.

“Coach Weldon lets me work on what I need to work on and he is always sticking up for us at the seeding meetings,” she said. “Coach Charles works with me on technique and refining it.”

Weldon calls Peralta an explosive wrestler.

“Most of her opponents don’t last the first period before they are pinned,” he said. “As a team captain, she is a great role model for young and inexperienced wrestlers to look up to.”

Peralta is No. 2 in Hawaii Prep World’s pound-for-pound rankings and she believes she has earned the right to be there.

Lesson in losing

The wrestler above her, Kahuku’s Teniya Alo, moved up from the 132-pound class to face Peralta at 145 and won 5-4.

“She’s a good wrestler,” Peralta said about Alo. “That was a really good match for me to have. She’s been wrestling four years longer than I have. Just the fact that I was able to keep up with her is really good. Even though I lost, it was a really good experience for me to see how I stood up to a (Fargo junior) national champion. It was really close. At first, I had the lead and then it was tied. In last few seconds, she got a reversal. I was hoping she stayed at 145 so I could compete with her, but I believe she’s down to 132 already (Alo is seeded No. 1 in 132.).”

When asked for her biggest accomplishment, at first Peralta said it was the state championship, but later said it was recovering from two severe shoulder injuries earlier in her wrestling career.

“Both labrums and rotator cuffs were completely torn (but not at the same time, requiring two surgeries),” she said.

Peralta, who wrestled at Campbell her first two years of high school before transferring to Radford, also suffered a concussion while grappling with a boy in practice as a sophomore.

“He lifted my leg and tree-topped it all the way up here,” she said, pointing to her shoulder. “I tried to jump and he swept my leg as I was in the air, so I landed straight on my head.”

Other celebrated victories

Her dad differs on the top of the accomplishment scale.

“To me, it was getting a wrestling scholarship for college. That was part of our plan since the seventh grade,” he said.

There have been other challenges and celebrations, including this story from off the mat with four of her wrestling buddies.

“It took us 11 hours to do the Moanalua Ridge trail all the way to Haiku Stairs,” Peralta said. “We started at 2 in the morning and we got lost for three hours. It was pitch black in the valley. They were kind of yelling at me because I had the phone and I was reading the wrong directions. It was all muddy and super narrow with sheer drop-offs. Two days later, someone fell off and died.”

It can get dark out there in the wrestling world (no tears, shoulder injuries, no real food, concussions), too. So far, though, Angela Peralta has found her way.