Gilroy falls by 13-point margin to Selma, but manages to grab
second place over St. Francis; Jesse Delgado and Martin Gonzalez
earn titles
GILROY
St. Francis and Gilroy. Gilroy and St. Francis. The two wrestling powerhouses have become nearly inseparable this season.
While it was Selma which snapped Gilroy’s three-year reign at Mid Cals on Saturday night, posting a 13-point victory over the second-place Mustangs, the 67-team tournament is considered the last premiere event prior to the postseason, and acts very much as a preview of things to come.
With the Central Coast Section Championships less than a month away, the Lancers and Mustangs are setting themselves apart from the rest of the competition, and setting themselves up for what should be a neck-and-neck battle for section supremacy on Feb. 20.
After St. Francis edged Gilroy by three points at the Gary Bianchini Memorial Wrestling Tournament in Cupertino earlier this month, the Mustangs returned the favor on Saturday night by defeating the Lancers by 3.5 points for runner-up at Mid Cals.
“It’s gonna be that way. It’s gonna be a real exciting CCS this year,” Gilroy head coach Armando Gonzalez said. “Our two teams are pretty evenly matched. It’s gonna come down to who’s healthy and who performs well at the top of their level at the end of the year.”
On Friday and Saturday, at least, it was the Mustangs that performed. Led by Jesse Delgado at 121 pounds and Martin Gonzalez at 127 pounds, each of whom won their respective weight divisions Saturday, Gilroy compiled 248.5 points to edge third-place St. Francis (245.0 points).
Selma, ranked third in the state of California, was paced by three titlists at 105, 132 and 142 pounds to take the Mid Cal crown with 261.5 points.
Mustangs Willie Fox (114) and Luis Barragan (287) each finished runner-up, while Gilroy placed three others among their 12 wrestlers that competed.
It was certainly a team effort, no doubt, but with individual champions earning four additional points to their team, Martin Gonzalez’ win over St. Francis’ Blake Kastl at 127 pounds may have been the difference in the end.
“That was a big win,” said Martin Gonzalez, who defeated Kastl by an 11-4 decision. Gonzales beat Kastl 11-3 at the Five Counties Wrestling Tournament last weekend, and fully expects to see the Lancer at CCS as well.
“I’ll wrestle him at CCS and I’m gonna try to beat him again,” said Gonzalez, who controlled Saturday’s match from start to finish, only allowing Kastl to score four points on four separate escapes. “But they’ve got a solid team. It should be a close race (at CCS).”
At 121 pounds, junior Jesse Delgado did the only thing he knows how to do at Mid Cals when he won his third straight title with an 11-2 decision over Turlock’s Fabian Garcia.
Garcia, who Delgado beat 6-3 in last year’s Mid Cal final, showcased flashes of speed in the early round and nearly scored a takedown in the opening seconds of the first period.
But Delgado never faltered and grabbed a 6-0 lead, including a 3-point near-fall, before Garcia scored his first and only points – a takedown with one minute remaining in the third round.
“I felt faster than him, and I knew he was tough,” said Delgado, who witnessed Garcia last week at Five Counties. “I felt a little slow, maybe we shouldn’t have ate as much before the finals, but I still felt faster than him.”
Delgado displayed a leg turk on Garcia – a turn move he picked up when former Mustang Hunter Collins returned from the University of Michigan during the holiday break.
“More top work,” Delgado said. “Collins, our 171-pounder, he won state and he did a lot of turks … Hunter showed us that when he came back from Michigan, and I’ve been doing it a lot since he came for Christmas break.”
Although the turn move didn’t award Delgado with a fall, he did score 3-point and 2-point near-falls.
Gonzalez and Delgado were Gilroy’s two lone champions Saturday, but the team wasn’t far off from placing all four of its finalists atop the podium.
Freshman Willie Fox (114) was actually up on Quincy’s Cody Pack 3-2 at the start of the third period, but Pack scored a reversal and a 3-point near-fall in the final nine seconds to win by a 7-3 decision.
Afterward, Fox said when he looked up at the scoreboard and saw 3-2, he thought was on the short end and instead made an aggressive push to score a takedown late in the round.
“I actually thought I was losing, that’s why I went for that move,” Fox said. “I thought I had less points.”
On the opposite end, heavyweight Luis Barragan went to double overtime with Silver Creek’s Richard Segovia. After regulation and the first overtime knotted the two 287-pounders at 1-1, Barragan won the flip and elected to defer.
In the first 30-second period of overtime, Segovia, from the down position, scored an escape within the first seven seconds. In the second period, Barragan, who was now in the down position, was trying to push up off his right arm to tie the match at 2-2, but Segovia chopped the arm away each time.
Segovia, who lost to Barragan in overtime at CCS last year, won this time by a 2-1 decision.
“We thought he’d be tired to ride us out in the third round,” Armando Gonzalez said. “And yet, he didn’t. [Segovia] really worked hard.
“We have potential to score more points than we did here. We’re gonna keep working toward that.”
Other grapplers who pocketed points for Gilroy Saturday included placers Jasmine Yanez (8th at 105 pounds), Rodney Balajadia (7th at 132) and Vincent Aboytes (3rd at 147).
Aaron Gonzalez placed fifth at 114 pounds for Gilroy-B, which finished in 56th place as a team with 24.5 points.
As a team, though, Gilroy will eye their next date with St. Francis at the CCS Championships, and will look to build upon their recent section success as well as repeat Saturday night’s narrow victory over the Lancers.
“They’ve got a great program, good people,” Armando Gonzalez said. “(St. Francis coach) Matt Danna and that staff are very good friends to us, so it’s not like people think, it’s not a big rivalry.
“We wrestle to win, but they do too.”
TEAM (67 TEAMS)
1 – Selma, 261.5
2 – Gilroy, 248.5
3 – St. Francis, 245.0
4 -Turlock, 173.5
5 – Centennial, 171.5
6 – San Benito, 154.5
7 – Kingsburg, 144.0
8 – Spanish Springs, 140.5
9 – Monterey, 134.0
10 – Dos Palos, 122.5
11 – Palo Alto, 121.0
12 – Prospect, 120.5
13 – Oak Grove, 120.0
14 – Livermore, 114.5
15 – Gunn, 110.5
MID CALS
INDIVIDUAL
105 – 1, A. Cisneros, Selma; 2, C. Lampert, Spanish Springs; 3, P. Rodriguez, Oak Grove; 4, K. Obien, Independence; 5, K. Klette, Los Banos; 6, A. Le, Seaside; 7, G. Navarrete, Dinuba; 8, J. Yanez, Gilroy.
114 – 1, C. Pack, Quincy; 2, W. Fox, Gilroy; 3, N. Nguyen, Saratoga; 4, T. Pearson, Spanish Springs; 5, A. Gonzalez, Gilroy-B; 6, J. Yamat, Silver Creek; 7, J. Munoz, Dos Palos; 8, J. Nguyen, Andrew Hill.
121 – 1, J. Delgado, Gilroy; 2, F. Garcia, Turlock; 3, AJ Valles, Selma; 4, J. Barajas, St. Francis; 5, R. Coloma, St. Patrick/St. Vincent; 6, M. Ruiz, El Diamante; 7, R. Thompson; 8, B. Santana, Prospect.
127 – 1, M. Gonzalez, Gilroy; 2, B. Kastl, St. Francis; 3, S. Perez, Hoover; 4, N. Mazza, Archbishop Riordan; 5, D. Jankovich, Roseville; 6, D. Vasquez, Pitman; 7, D. Tablit, Centennial; 8, T. Spencer, Liberty of Madera.
132 – 1, J. Mendoza, Selma; 2, A. Olivares, Oak Grove; 3, A. Fraser, Livermore; 4, A. Quenga, Overfelt; 5, C. Boontjer, Foothill; 6, R. Perez, Hoover; 7, R. Balajadia, Gilroy; 8, B. Lozada, Terra Nova.
137 – 1, S. Hicks, Centennial; 2, N. Cano, St. Francis; 3, N. Zarate, Selma; 4, S. Takagi, Prospect; 5, B. Tuico, Vallejo; 6, B. Kannel, Livermore; 7, L. Maciel, Kingsburg; 8, G. Coelho, San Benito.
142 – 1, N. Escalera, Selma; 2, A. Ballard, Centennial; 3, M. Phanthavong, Granite Hills; 4, A. Sanchez, Livermore; 5, M. Mendoza, Everett Alvarez; 6, N. Gizzo, Liberty of Madera; 7, D. Gorman, Gunn; 8, S. Borba, San Benito.
147 – 1, C. Rodebaugh, San Lorenzo Valley; 2, J. Ramirez, San Benito; 3, V. Aboytes, Gilroy; 4, J. Maschio, Monterey; 5, K. McFate, Roseville; 6, G. Hartman, Los Banos; 7, C. Post, Gunn; 8, S. Baniani, St. Francis.
154 – 1, C. Padilla, Pitman; 2, A. Tirado, Kingsburg; 3, J. Lozano, Selma; 4, K. Venell, Prospect; 5, H. Gomez, Dos Palos; 6, S. Touba, Junipero Serra; 7, M. Ramos, Hoover; 8, T. Raisch, St. Francis.
162 – 1, P. Sheehan, Palo Alto; 2, T. Edwards, Monterey; 3, E. Lucatero, San Benito; 4, S. Chene, Leigh; 5, M. Thalin, King’s Academy; 6, G. Tyler, Kingsburg; 7, S. Adams, Quincy; 8, E. Schoenborn, Centennial.
173 – 1, J. Lucchetti, Terra Nova; 2, C. White, Spanish Springs; 3, J. Gutierrez, Turlock; 4, Z. Blumenfeld, Gunn; 5, J. Rivera, Prospect; 6, J. Jackson, St. Francis; 7, T. Wood, Modoc; 8, M. Alvarez, Cupertino.
191 – 1, T. Mobley, Turlock; 2, I. Fernandez, Monterey; 3, W. Eleazer, Aragon; 4, A. Yen, Saratoga; 5, W. Jackson, Kingsburg; 6, F. Garcia; 7, J. Subia, Oak Grove; 8, D. DeAlba, Junipero Serra.
217 – 1, D. Meulman, St. Francis; 2, J. Wood, Modoc; 3, R. Mayorga, El Camino; 4, M. Delgado, Turlock; 5, M. Aufderheide, Livermore; 6, J. Cannon, Granite Hills; 7, J. Morales, Oak Grove; 8, S. Brasil, Mount Pleasant.
287 – 1, R. Segovia, Silver Creek; 2, L. Barragan, Gilroy; 3, C. Tozer, Valley Christian; 4, D. Berry, Vallejo; 5, P. Park, Gunn; 6, M. Torres, Modoc; 7, M. Lohr, Pacific Grove; 8, L. Enos, Dos Palos.
