Dave Leder

Justyce Zuniga has always enjoyed wrestling, but it wasn’t until high school that he turned into the omnipotent force he would eventually become on the mat.

The Toppenish High School senior possessed enough confidence and technical ability to win the Class 1A 126-pound state championship as a freshman, but he knew in his heart that he could go even farther. 

That’s when he made a conscious decision to take the Washington prep wrestling circuit by storm.

“When I was younger, I wasn’t really the best,” Zuniga said. “I would win for my middle school team, but there was always someone at the bigger tournaments who could beat me. By the end of my freshman year, I started to figure some things out and develop my own style. I started to dominate every time I competed, and that’s when I truly fell in love with the sport.”

Zuniga went on to win three more state championships, including the Class 2A 138-pound title at Mat Classic XXXVII in early March, joining his brother Kiyanno, a 2025 Top-Hi graduate, as the only four-time state champions in boys program history. (Wildcat girls team member Adalyne Montiel became the school’s first female wrestler to win four state titles this winter.)

Zuniga’s other brother Jermiah (Class of 2024) won three state titles, but he was denied the chance at a four-peat due to the COVID-induced cancellation of Mat Classic in 2021. 

Justyce Zuniga credits his two older brothers — both of whom are now wrestling in college — and his dad, Anthony, for always pushing him to be his best.

“I spent a lot of time in the wrestling room with my dad and brothers, and something finally just clicked for me,” he said. “Jermiah was whoopin’ up on me early in my freshman year, but by the following summer, I was able to keep up with him. I felt like I really started to jump levels that year, and not many people have been able to match up with me since.”

Zuniga’s only defeats the past three years have come to out-of-state opponents, including a rare loss in the 132-pound championship of the National High School Coaches Association nationals in Virginia earlier this spring.

After earning a pin and three technical falls on his way to the championship round, the second-seeded Zuniga eventually succumbed to top seed Christopher Noto by a count of 4-2.

“I didn’t really take the loss that hard because I didn’t have any of my coaches with me,” said Zuniga, ranked as the best pound-for-pound wrestler in the state by the Washington Wrestling Network. “I had to train by myself and make a lot of my own decisions, so I was pretty happy to still finish second.”

Now that Zuniga has completed his youth folk-style wrestling career, he is training for the U.S. Open freestyle tournament in Las Vegas in late April. Leading up to the tournament, he will travel to Fresno, Calif., to train with other top talent so he can increase his chances for a podium finish. But, as Zuniga understands well, it’s not going to be easy.

“The U.S. Open is an even bigger tournament than the national high school tournament, so I have to go out of state to train with the best,” he said, adding that he will be competing against college wrestlers in the under-20 division. “I know I’m going to have to work extra hard, but I believe in what I can do.”

The U.S. Open and Junior Nationals in Fargo, N.D., this summer will help Zuniga gauge where he is heading into his freshman year at the University of Arkansas-Little Rock. 

He talked to a number of Division I schools over the past couple of years, but in the end, he decided that Arkansas-Little Rock would be the best fit for him as he continues his development.

“I have known the coaches since I was in eighth grade, when they came to watch Jermiah,” Zuniga said. “They have been keeping an eye on me ever since, and I feel like I know them pretty well. I could have gone to a bigger school, but I wanted to stay with the people I know and trust. For me, it’s not about how big the school is; it’s the impact they make on you.”

Zuniga will always remember the impact that Wildcats head coach Pepe Segovia and his staff made on them. He and his brothers are proud of what they accomplished with Toppenish wrestling, and their legacy of winning will always speak for itself. All told, the three brothers finished their high school careers 11-for-11 in Mat Classic finals.

“Accomplishing what we have is really cool for the school and for our family,” Zuniga said. “There are a lot of people who are going to be remembered here, and for me and my brothers to be on that list is just an amazing feeling.”

Once he gets through college, Zuniga plans to turn his passion for wrestling into a career. One of his goals is to open a wrestling academy in the Lower Yakima Valley where he can help train the next generation of state champions.

“When I get done, I want to give back to the program and the community that made me who I am,” he said. “I want to start investing in it now so that when I’m done with school, I can get started right away.”

Looking back on his illustrious career in Washington high school wrestling, Zuniga couldn’t have written a better script for how things would eventually turn out.

Along the way, he’s left an indelible mark on the Wildcat wrestling program, his school, and the sport of wrestling.

“It’s been such a blessing,” Zuniga said. “It’s been a lot of hard work, but it’s all been worth it because I’m doing what I love. I’m just going to keep my foot on the gas and keep jumpin’ levels. And hopefully, one day, I can call myself a national champion.”