Mason Ontiveros is just eight-years-old, but this young student-athlete has big goals and aspirations in wrestling and his recent accomplishments speaks for themselves.

Ontiveros recently won the most prestigious award in youth wrestling called the Trinity Wrestling Award, the toughest Triple Crown to win for a youth wrestler, according to Turlock Wrestling Club coach Lucas Solarez.

Ontiveros is the first Turlock wrestler to achieve this kind of award, setting the bar for an already top notch program in the state.

He also recently competed at the 20th annual Flo Reno Worlds from the Livestock Events Center in Reno, Nevada from April 6-9 and came out a champion after dominating at the three-day event with over 3,000 competitors.

“I just cared about wrestling good in order to win,” said Ontiveros, who wrestled in the 75-pound weight class. “I think I did really good and I wrestled very good. I think I could have done better because I still need to improve on my technique.”

“He is very competitive and really strong for his age,” said Solarez. “His success comes from the above. The couple moves that we perfected and his willingness to learn what to fix when he did lose matches this year. Very happy with his performance he worked very hard.”

Ontiveros competed in the eight and under division in a 32-man bracket and secured a perfect 5-0 record with four wins via fall and a decision victory in the final where he wrestled Ladd Holman of Nephi in Utah and ended up winning 3-2.

He was also named the Outstanding Wrestler in the 8U division.

“I hope I can improve on my technique,” said Ontiveros. “I hope to win Reno again next year. I also want to thank my coaches for helping me accomplish my goal and also I want to thank the Turlock community who supported with donations to make this possible.”

Ontiveros started his journey with his first national title in November at the Tulsa Kickoff Classic, from Tulsa, Oklahoma.

He defeated Brayton Fiester of Ohio in that final.

“He would work out on his own at home because he wanted it that bad. Sometimes we would entice saying Fiester is working harder,” said Solarez. “He also stuck to the game plans. We knew already since we already watched each kid before we wrestled them.”

Ontiveros started wrestling at age 6, and won in Reno Worlds back in 2015 and took third last year. His training partner, Dominick Luna, placed sixth in the 10 and under 80-pound division.

“He truly loves the sport and his family I think motivates him,” said Solarez. “After that I would like him to take a break and be a kid for the summer. Then start back up and try to do it again. His future is bright. The goal is the not burn him out — keep it fun.”

“All the kids from the team did great. The team all helped with his preparation,” Solarez added. “I think all the kids have the potential to be great and are right at there about to breakthrough. If he can win the last two state titles he can triple crown once more.”

The next event is the California state triple crown. Greco style is in May and freestyle in June.