Ralph Nieves is always fighting to get better.
Nieves is a senior on the Northeast High School wrestling team, and for the last four years, he’s battled every day in the room to break into the Vikings lineup.
With Northeast being one of the top teams in the Public League, it’s not easy to crack the lineup, especially when mat time was sporadic last year during the height of the pandemic, but Nieves never stopped working.
“I feel like this is a part of my life ever since I stepped on the mat,” said Nieves, who lives in Bustleton. “I feel like nothing can stop me, even if I lose, I want to get back and get better. My coach makes sure we’re on top of everything, doing the right things, he’s fully dedicated, he’s been doing this for years, so that helps us all stay motivated. To have a coach like that, who has been doing this for years, it’s really empowering.”
All the work Nieves put in more than paid off this season. Not only was he in the lineup, not only was he a leader of the team, but he’s a champion.
Host Northeast defeated Central 40-27 last week to bring home the Public League title. It’s the second straight year and the third time in four years that the Vikings ended the season with the championship plaque.
Nieves, who bumped up from the 145-pound weight class to 152 pounds, won his match 6-3 to help Northeast win.
The Vikings got pins from Ali Jozi, Ethan Melendez, Nasir Rahming, Firdavs Kadirov and Deshawn Woodhouse, and decision wins from Muhammad Farooq and Aland Sylvester in the championship.
“I was ecstatic after we won,” Nieves said. “It felt great to be out there with the huge crowd watching us. Last year we had a championship, but every match was dead. This year was so alive. It was so hopeful for everyone to get a chance to go out and wrestle. It felt great.
“There was a lot of hype up for this. I almost got a pin in the second period, but I wasn’t able to do it. It was different because I was wrestling someone in a higher weight class, but I was so confident. I knew if I did what I needed to do, I could win. It was a real good back-and-forth match, but it felt good to win.”
Northeast went on to wrestle La Salle, the Catholic League runner-up, in the District 12 championship, but the Explorers won 64-9. Rahming picked up a pinfall win against La Salle. Melendez won by decision.
This wasn’t an easy season for any wrestling teams.
Last year teams didn’t get as much time on the mat, so this year a lot of wrestlers had to learn from scratch. It was that way with the Vikings, too, and Nieves was happy to share his knowledge and experience with the younger guys.
“We just took what we had and improvised,” Nieves said. “We saw the people who needed help. We were inexperienced in a lot of weight classes, we paired up people in similar weight classes, we taught a lot of different moves, worked on moves that worked great for certain people and gained lots of knowledge.
“I tried to help everyone any way I could. Especially with the past three years of training, I was able to make sure most people got certain positions right, making sure they knew what to do in certain situations. Our coach is a great teacher and we knew what to do. That helped us.”
All of the training they put in, they needed.
Nieves is particularly proud of this year’s title because he saw how competitive the Public League was. Even the teams they beat in lopsided scores earned his respect.
“Belmont and Central were both really good, so was Overbrook,” Nieves said. “We wrestled Washington and they didn’t have a lot of guys, but they really brought it. All of those teams helped us get better.”
Nieves still has a lot of work to do at Northeast.
The Vikings may have accomplished their goal of winning a Public League championship, but now Nieves is focused on making All-Public. And after wrestling season, he’ll stay on the mat for his other sport.
When he’s not wrestling or starring in the classroom, Nieves is training at Martinez BJJ Fitness Center in Mayfair with the hopes of someday becoming a mixed martial arts fighter.
He uses a lot of what he’s learned at Northeast from coach Mike Siravo to succeed at his other sport.
Not only does he want to do this as a fun pastime activity, he wants to eventually make a career out of it.
“I do really well in school, but I don’t think I’m going to go to college, at least not right away,” Nieves said. “I think I’ll start off doing something small, maybe get a job at a store around here and focus on training for MMA.”
And he’ll always have the memory of helping Northeast win a championship.
“This was definitely the highlight of my high school,” Nieves said. “This was great, it was the best memory that I can have. I actually wrestled in the championship. That makes me very proud, I love the way they come in every day, they work hard, they really do. They try to get better every single day. They love this sport as much as I do and that makes me proud.”
