Mustangs remain undefeated with 46-24 wn over Salinas
GILROY – The Gilroy High wrestling line-up was filled with underclassmen such as Taylor Harrington, Christian Javier, Joe Serrano, Miles Amedeo for its Thursday home dual meet against Salinas.
Head coach Armondo Gonzalez – who sat some wrestlers because they were closing in on the 40-match limit and others because they were simply too strong for the competition – wanted to give his junior varsity grapplers a feel for the varsity grind.
Up against a young, inexperienced Salinas squad was just the right time for it as the Mustang matmen (4-0 in T-CAL) cruised to a 46-24 home victory to remain undefeated in league.
“It’s great for the young kids. We have a really great group of JV wrestlers so it was an opportunity,” said Coach Gonzalez, who worked things out before the match with Salinas coach Joe Dominguez. “We knew that he had a lot of youngsters in that line-up so we wanted to give them good competive matches for his boys and mine.
“Instead of putting them in there against (John) Gurich and (Adin) Duenas and (Armondo) Gonzalez and (Danny) San Juan, we put some of our second men in there. As you can see, they’re pretty good wrestlers, too.”
While some starters had the night off, others did not like seniors Andrew Rauss, Gilbert Gutierrez, Ryan Reynaud, and Martin Serrano as well as juniors Mark Zabala, Nick Fortino, and Jose Albarron.
“We have a tough tournament tomorrow and they have to make weight today, make weight tomorrow and make weight on Saturday so that’s another reason why I didn’t wrestle all the veterans,” said Gonzalez, whose squad will compete in the Mission San Jose Tournament. “This tournament is going to be really tough, just as tough as Mid-Cals. We’re not taking our full team over there so we don’t expect the team standings to be what we’ve been doing lately.”
The longest match of Thursday night involved Fortino and Salinas’ Matt Maschmeyer in the 160-pound weight class. Following a scoreless first period, Fortino took the lead with a one-point escape but allowed Maschmeyer to score a takedown before the end of the second period. Trailling by one in the third, Fortino pushed the action while Maschmeyer backed up – prompting a pair of stalling points for Fortino to knot the score at 3-3 and send it into overtime.
After neither wrestler scored in the first one-minute overtime period, Maschmeyer chose down in the second overtime – where the top wrestler wins if he keeps his man down for 30 seconds, or the bottom wrestler wins with an escape or reversal. Fortino kept Maschmeyer down for 26 ticks before giving up the escape for a 4-3 loss.
“I’m getting cramps in my calves. I thought I was able to get the double on him, but he’s strong,” said Fortino, who was favoring one leg in the overtime periods. “I just wish I could wrestle him again.”
Following a forfeit for 140-pounder Callan Romesberg, Rauss headed on the mat against Salinas’ Ryan Kershner – who caused little problems for Rauss besides a third-period headbutt. Rauss went up 6-0 after one, 10-0 after two, and registered a 15-0 technicall fall with 1:04 remaining.
“He took a shot and I usually use my hands as my first line of defense but for some reason I dropped my hands and we bumped heads,” said Rauss, a little dizzy after his bout. “I just really wanted to go out and win and do the best I could at the heavier weight… I kind of worked on what we worked on in practice. Callan and I really pushed each other all week.”
In the 152-pound weight class, senior Martin Serrano had similar results – tech falling Salinas’ Sam Brooks by an 18-0 margin in the third period.
“I had the double-arm three times and I had the head and arm twice. He wasn’t really doing anything. He was just waiting for me to do something,” Serrano said. “I did not want to get it over really quick. I wanted to work on my technique and make it last longer.”
After Fortino’s double-overtime defeat, Zabala tossed Salinas’ Randy Tsuboi around the mat until he finally recorded a pin with 50 seconds left in the second period. The pins kept coming after that as Reynaud at 189s and Albarron at 215s both put their opponents flat on their back.
“We practiced really hard this week. We have a tournament this weekend. This is a warmup for that. We’ve been practicing really hard,” Reynaud said. “I lifted up his arm and ducked around and just outmuscled him.”
With Gilroy forfeiting at heavyweight, the score stood at 34-9 for the Mustangs before Harrington earned a pinfall in his first varsity match.
“I just took it like any other match,” said Harrington, after receiving congrats from his teammates and coaches.
The string of JV-ers continued with Javier recording a first-period pin at the buzzer and then Joe Serrano battling hard but falling 12-5 at 119s. Then, Amedeo – who was tied at 2-2 to end the first – got stuck in the second period.
Following a Gilroy forfeit at 130s, Gutierrez finished the night off with a second-period pin of Salinas’ Aaron McKenna.
“We’re gearing up for league finals and CCS,” said Coach Gonzalez, who has his team primed for a championship run.
