Lucas Cotto Jr '22 Recruiting Profile

A few things about me;

I am currently a sophomore living in Hampstead, North Carolina attending Topsail High School, which is a 3A school. This past wrestling season, I wrestled on the varsity team from 113 to 120 pounds. I finished the season 35-7. My significant accomplishments this year were winning the Beach Brawl and Dirty Bird Invitational, taking second in the Beast of the East, and third at the Jolly Rogers Tournament. Additionally, I was honored to be selected as one of the team captains. I currently have a 3.9 GPA while taking all honors and AP classes. I wasn’t able to live up to my high expectations and goals that I set for myself this past season, but I will continue to strive to get better and to push my fellow teammates.

I got into the sport of wrestling because of my father. He would always tell me he loved the sport and the life lessons it teaches you, so I decided to try it. At the time, we lived in Hawaii. I was only able to wrestle for a few months due to my Dad being in the Marines and receiving orders to move. We moved for a bit, so we were unable to find a wrestling club until we moved again to Okinawa, Japan. Once we arrived, we found a wrestling club called Gladiators, and I jumped at the chance to do it again. Out of the three years and 20 tournaments, I only lost one match. I was also invited to join a Japanese freestyle league; I competed in a few tournaments placing 2nd twice and 1st in my very last one. I was also named Most Outstanding Wrestler by the Japanese Wrestling officials.

My goals for my junior year is to always be the best wrestler I can be, but specifically, I’d like to improve on last year, by getting over 40 wins, become a state qualifier and finishing top 4 in states. My team goals are to beat the schools that we lost to last year and make it to the state dual-team tournament again but to place this time. Aside from wrestling, I believe academics are just as important, if not more, and that’s why I’m challenging myself by taking all honors and AP classes. My goal is to continue to build on my 3.9 GPA by raising it to a 4.0. I'm hoping by the end of this school year that I will be accepted into the National Honors Society for my junior and senior years.

A few of my long term goals are to win a high school wrestling state title, receive a scholarship to college for wrestling, become a national champion and all-American wrestler. To reach these lofty goals, you need to have a hard work ethic and NO QUIT attitude; I have that! I’ll not only push myself but my teammates because if they can get better, than I will as well. These are a few reasons why I would be a tremendous asset to any program that allows me to wrestle for them. My last goal is to serve my country like my father by joining the military as a Marine Officer and a Pilot.