On the football field, no one had a motor like Lake Oswego’s Lusiano Lopez.

He played every snap at full throttle and terrorized opposing offenses from sideline to sideline, leading the Lakers to a Three Rivers League title and a berth in the Class 6A championship game.

For his efforts, he was named TRL Defensive Player of the Year and earned a berth on the 6A all-state first team.

In wrestling, Lopez – a 2024 state champion – brutalized smaller wrestlers and outquicked bigger foes on the way to a second straight TRL title at 215 pounds, and later, a third-place finish at the state tournament with a 29-1 overall record.

For all those reasons and many more, Lusiano Lopez has been named Athlete of the Year for Lake Oswego High School. The Athlete of the Year honor is given to the top graduated senior – male or female – from Lake Oswego High School.

 

Football

While Lopez, 18, will wrestle in college – first at Clackamas Community College, and after that, at Ohio State University – he left nothing on the table during his senior football season.

While the Lakers don’t keep formal defensive statistics, LO coach Steve Coury said that Lopez led his team in all meaningful defensive categories.

With Lopez leading the defense, Lake Oswego went 5-0 in TRL play – including a key 21-17 win over top-ranked West Linn – then advanced to the 6A title contest before dropping a 44-30 decision to the Lions.

“I thought we could go all the way and win it. We had a really tight-knit bond,” Lopez said. “It was me and a couple of other dudes (Oliver Macy, Jagar Shean and Jaden Moore) that started being leaders and just taking the mentality that we could do it. We could do whatever we put our minds to. I really thought we could do it.”

Coury said that Lopez was key to all his team’s success in 2024.

“He’s just tenacious and he’s got a great desire to win and compete,” Coury said. “He’s probably one of the top three defensive guys that we’ve had in my 33 years. He’s that kind of player.”

Lopez said that work ethic and leadership played the biggest parts in the Lakers’ 2024 success, that a year after going just 6-4 and falling in the first round of the playoffs. LO’s ’24 season included signature wins over eventual champion West Linn, talented crosstown rival Lakeridge and 2023 state champion Central Catholic.

“When we played Lakeridge, we just beat Lakeridge up and they had all these great players,” Lopez said. “But it doesn’t matter how big you are or how fast you are. … As long as you have the mentality that ‘I’m just gonna kick your ass no matter what,’ that’s what really made me (know that) we were gonna win.”

“He’s so tenacious. There’s never any quit in him,” Coury said. “He was just relentless.”

That said, Lopez and the Lakers saw their 2024 season end in disappointment, with West Linn coming back to win 44-30 in the championship.

“When we went to to the state finals, everybody was like, ‘Oh. We’re just going to beat (West Linn) again,” Lopez said. “We didn’t have the … mentality we had (in the regular season). They were pissed off because they came in off a loss and they were fired up. And we didn’t really feel the same. … They came out and just popped us in the mouth.”

Nothing about the Lakers’ final game, however, diminished Lopez’s stellar senior season. Beyond all the “Ws,” all the sacks and all the tackles, Lopez proved himself to be a great teammate, a great leader and a great friend.

“He’s just a guy that’s matured and learned so much about people and what’s important in life. He became a really good teammate, and then, a leader. By the end of his senior year, he was a great leader and a lot of that was because of his maturity as a person,” Coury said. “In the meantime, he’s just one heck of a football player and a wrestler. He knows (the value) of working hard. No one – no one – can outwork that kid.”

Wrestling

Lopez’s senior wrestling season, meanwhile, started slowly, but then gained momentum – and 28 straight wins – before ending with a shocking loss at state.

As to his slow start, Lopez admits that LO’s loss in the football championship affected him for weeks afterward.

“After state (football), I didn’t even want to be on a mat. I didn’t want to do anything,” Lopez said, noting that he missed the first three tournaments of the year as he worked to cut weight. “My mom was worried about me because I wouldn’t come out of my room.”

But when he returned to practice – first with Peninsula Wrestling Club – he discovered that nothing had changed.

“It was the same coaches that were talking to me. The same coaches that were trying to help me,” Lopez said. “That just drove me back to that mode of ‘I’m the best. I’m the best wrestler.’”

From there, Lopez hit the accelerator and hit it hard. He went unbeaten in the Three Rivers League. He won all five of his regular season tournaments and won his first 28 matches of the year.

“I felt really, really like I was ready to go, just ready to scrap,” Lopez said. “I felt the same (as when I was a junior), that same drive, that same everything. Still working hard in the mornings, still going to all these practices.”

None of that surprised his Lake Oswego wrestling coach, Turner Young.

“His strengths are his coachability and his activity rate,” said Young, who was dismissed as LO coach before the 2025 state tournament. “When he gets excited about something and learning something, you’ve gotta kick him out of the mat room. Whether it’s the wrestling room, the weight room, wherever it is, he’s gonna come in before school and after school. So while he’s got a great size and strength combination, it’s his activity level that makes him great.”

After a dominant regular season, a blowout run at the TRL district tournament and two straight pins to open the 6A tournament, however, the top-ranked Lopez got upset in the semifinals.

In retrospect, Lopez said that he was too consumed with winning state as a senior.

“I was like, ‘I want to win state.’ It was my main goal,” Lopez said. “I wasn’t thinking about working, about wanting to get to (nationals), about going hard. I was just thinking about state and that put a lot of pressure on myself.”

As painful as his semifinal loss was, Lopez managed to close his final high school career with a flourish. He wiped out his final state opponent in just 35 seconds, came back to win regionals, reached the quarterfinals of the U20 US Open and proved himself by beating college wrestlers along the way.

“I should have had more pressure than I had at state, but I just felt loose, the same way I felt my junior year,” Lopez said. “Those are just crazy hard tournaments … and it felt really nice to have that. This was how I felt last year. Just seeing myself wrestle how I actually wrestle, it felt really good to end on that note.”

Like Coury, Young was more impressed with Lopez’s character, his leadership and his love for the sport.

“He’s awesome. He’s everything you could ask for,” Young said. “(And) his love for the sport is something that I’ve never really seen. He truly loves it. He truly loves just going out there and giving it his all.”