Merced Union High School District

Livingston High seniors Noemi and Aleyda Revuelta aren’t hard to spot at wrestling tournaments. When the twin sisters aren’t on the mat they can usually be found wearing their purple robes. The robes were gifts from Wolves assistant coach Ed Basurto as a reward for making it to the CIF State Tournament a couple years ago.

 

The robes have their names embroidered on the back and have been upgraded recently with league and section championship patches sewn on much like a letterman jacket. “We leave at 5 a.m. for wrestling tournaments so it’s cold out and they would always bring robes,” said Livingston wrestling coach Alfonso Paez. “One would wear a blue checker robe and the other a green one. We asked them if they wanted letterman jackets, but they said, ‘No, we like our robes.’ So coach Ed bought them purple robes for Christmas one year and now it’s kind of taken off. People come up to them and ask them about the robes. There was a Johansen wrestler who bought a robe because he saw them wearing their robes. It’s pretty cool.”

 

Those purple robes will make their way to Adventist Health Arena in Stockton on Friday for the Sac-Joaquin Section Masters Tournament. The Revuelta sisters will be two of 50 MUHSD wrestlers trying to punch their ticket to the CIF State Championships in Bakersfield next week. 

 

Aleyda, who is the all-time winningest girls wrestler at Livingston with 124 wins, qualified by winning the 130-pound division at the Sac-Joaquin Section South Regional last week. Noemi, who is second all time in wins with 99, placed third at the regional tournament in the 135-pound division. Noemi is looking for her third consecutive trip to state, but she’s dealing with an injury that may prevent her from competing at Masters. Aleyda is looking to qualify for state for the second consecutive year.

 

“Their work ethic makes them special,” Paez said. “They are the first ones there and the last ones to leave. They work out super hard. I don't even have to tell them, they just do what they're supposed to do, and then they do extra.”

 

Their work ethic, character and achievements go way beyond wrestling. The Revuelta twins moved away from their home a few years ago. It just wasn’t working out for them at home with their mother for various reasons. They moved in with their older sister Alondra, who also wrestled at Livingston and now wrestles at Modest Junior College. Now 18, the twins live together and help take care of their 12-year old brother Elder. 

 

Noemi and Aleyda both work part-time jobs, wrestle and still find the time to put in the work in the classroom. They both get excellent grades with a class load that includes two AP classes and a dual-enrollment course. With their mother often busy with work, the twins have stood in and attended parent-teacher conferences for their little brother since he was in kindergarten.

 

“I try to tell them, ‘Hey, you guys don't have that normal high school life, where you just go home and watch TV,” Paez said. “It’s more like college life.”

 

It makes for long days during wrestling season with school, afternoon practice and then off to work for a three to four-hour shift, and then it’s back home to do homework. “We stay up until 10:30 or 11 to do homework most nights,” Noemi said. 

 

“We kind of just have to make the sacrifice,” Aledya said. “We're going to have to go to sleep early when we can because we’re going to have to repeat the cycle, wake up early again, go to school and work because that’s the way life is and we have to do it. We’re old enough to understand what it is.”

 

The twins say they’ve received a lot of help from friends, community and coaches. “People will get mad at us if we don’t tell them what we need,” Noemi said. 

 

Facing everything together has made the twins inseparable. They say they couldn’t do this without each other. “I’ve thought about that,” Noemi said. “What if I didn’t have my sister. I don’t think we could do it without each other. Maybe physically I could do it, but not mentally.” Ayeda agreed. “I couldn’t imagine life by myself,” she said. Ayeda says she gets anxious when she can’t find her twin sister in the gym at a wrestling meet right away. That’s why they both say they are a package deal if a college wrestling coach is looking to recruit them and they are attracting interest from schools. 

 

The Livingston wrestling program has become such a big part of their lives. They knew nothing about wrestling when they started as freshmen. Ayeda says she was almost disqualified at her first tournament because she was doing so many illegal moves. Now the program has become an extended family for them and wrestling is opening potential paths for them to go to college. “It’s not just about winning and being successful,” said Noemi. “It’s my teammates and coaches, they haven't just helped me become a better wrestler, through their support, they’ve also helped me become better as a person. They've been there for me during rough times, and they're always going to be there for me.”

 

When the Wolves won the Sac-Joaquin Section Dual championship many of the freshmen wrestlers were crying because they were already thinking about next year and how hard it will be without the twins still on the team to lead them.

“Yeah, our younger girls were crying because they're like, ’I don't know what we're going to do without them,’ Paez said. “We told them you guys have to put in time, like they do. They weren't good at one point. So you guys are the new generation, but year, they're scared of seeing them leave. That's how much those girls mean to them. Us as a coaching staff, seeing them grow up and all the adversity they have to deal with, and they chose the hardest sport, high school wrestling. It's just incredible what they've been able to accomplish.”

 

Shawn Jansen is the MUHSD Program Manager Digital Media. He can be reached at Sjansen@muhsd.org.