Former Longhorn standout ‘loses big’ to help CSC wrestling team

    A heavyweight during his first two years on the Chadron State College wrestling team, Eli Hinojosa of Imperial has shed about 65 lbs. and will compete at 197 lbs. when the Eagles open their season Thursday at Adams State in Alamosa, Colorado.
    Hinojosa made news while wrestling at 220 lbs. for the Chase County Longhorns his final two seasons. He was the Class C runner-up with a 1-0 score as a junior in 2017 and won the gold medal his senior season in 2018.
    Since there’s no 220 lbs. weight class in college, Hinojosa figured if he was going to wrestle for the Eagles it would have to be at heavyweight.  He said he weighed about 265 when he enrolled as a freshman in the fall of 2018 and stayed around the mark again last year.
    However, the Eagles had another young heavyweight, Mason Watt of Broomfield, Colorado, in the same class.  After competing against Watt, who is “bigger built,” the past two years in practice and seldom winning, Hinojosa decided he’d go a different direction—lose weight.
    “I decided to eat better and eat less and do extra work,” Hinojosa said. “I feel better now than I did before.”
    Chadron State Coach Brett Hunter said it will probably take a few matches to find out how Hinojosa fares at his new weight class.
    “He’s still pretty inexperienced as a college wrestler and there are always some really impressive 197-pounders,” Hunter said.  
    “Most of them also have lost a lot of weight.  But we appreciate what Eli has done and I’m sure it will pay off for him in the long run. For one thing, I’m sure he’s healthier now,” he said.
    Being a heavyweight wasn’t a waste of time for Hinojosa. While he didn’t fill the varsity spot for the Eagles last year while Watt was compiling a 20-9 record, Hinojosa entered an array of open tournaments and finished with a 17-3 record.
    He won his final 13 matches of the season and was the champion at both the Doane University and the Rocky Mountain tournaments.