Hollister
– For the best, Saturday’s wrestling tournament at San Benito
High was a mere tune-up for this weekend’s CCS Championships and
next weekend’s State Finals. These are the wrestlers – largely from
Gilroy and Hollister – with their eyes on a prize loftier than
Tri-County Athletic League bragging
rights.
Hollister – For the best, Saturday’s wrestling tournament at San Benito High was a mere tune-up for this weekend’s CCS Championships and next weekend’s State Finals. These are the wrestlers – largely from Gilroy and Hollister – with their eyes on a prize loftier than Tri-County Athletic League bragging rights.
For the rest, the TCAL Championships were an exclamation mark on the 2004-05 season and at best, an outside shot at qualifying for those Central Coast Section finals at San Jose’s Overfelt High this Friday and Saturday.
But for those in the stands, the action on the mat was simply another chance to witness first-rate wrestling from a first-rate league that pretty much has a headlock on regional grappling dominance for the foreseeable future.
Of course, the biggest reason for that dominance is Gilroy High, which as expected dominated the TCALs for the third year in a row, taking eight titles. A slightly lesser reason is San Benito High, which won four titles. Both schools will send 14 wrestlers – filling all 14 weight division slots – to Overfelt.
The Salinas schools were shut out of the first-place spots, as was Sobrato of Morgan Hill, while Live Oak took two titles to round out the final standings.
When all was said and done, 70 wrestlers lined up for ribbons and the right to move on to CCS.
The Mustangs, heavily favored in the tournament, had eight No. 1 seeds going into TCALs. All eight finished first. Gilroy also had two wrestlers place second and four more finished third. The ‘Stangs racked up 243.5 points to easily take home the team title.
Hollister’s five No. 1 seeds did almost as well, with four going the distance and only one No. 1 – Chris Mora (119) – falling to second at the hands of Live Oak No. 3 Hondo Dominguez. The ‘Balers had 176.5 team points on the day, followed by Live Oak (83.0), Salinas (80.5), Palma (63.5), North Salinas (26.0) and Sobrato (24.0).
Perhaps no finals match better represented the in-a-class-of-their-own rivalry between the ‘Stangs and the ‘Balers than the 160 division clash between Gilroy’s freshman phenom Hunter Collins and Hollister’s Chuck Thompson.
Collins, the No. 1 seed, had already beaten No. 2 Thompson at last month’s TCAL dual meet between the two schools, and Saturday’s 11-4 decision in his favor would seem to indicate that the freshman has the senior’s number.
But the points don’t tell the whole story. Collins had the match well in hand after the first round, and took control again in the third.
It was in the second round that Thompson gave Collins fits, nearly pinning his Mustang opponent before the top seed escaped, shook off the near disaster and outpointed the No. 2 the rest of the way.
For his part, Gilroy head coach Armando Gonzalez said he had no doubts that his team would perform up to its own high standards.
“We expected them to do as well as they did,” he said. “We thought we would have seven champions, but we ended up with eight.”
Eight champions are impressive under any circumstance, but the fact Gilroy only has one senior and two juniors make the accomplishment that much more noteworthy.
“There is so much work you have to do when you have such a young team,” Gonzalez said. “But they’ve shown up and wrestled consistently. Now we’re ranked 10th in the state.”
Gilroy’s final ranking of 13th in California after last season is a high water mark for the program – and many thought this year’s squad wouldn’t come close to matching it after graduating several top placers.
But the current crop of kids who won TCAL gold Saturday – freshmen Collins and Tim Ibañez (112), sophomores Nico Naranja (103), Austin Gubrud (140) and Andres Barragan (189), juniors Adin Dueñas (130) and Armando Gonzalez (135), and the lone senior, Joseph Serrano (125) – simply don’t know they’re not supposed to be this good.
“Everyone gives as much effort as they can,” Collins said after the match. “We always want more and we’re never satisfied.”
Meanwhile, the Hollister squad was deficient only by comparison to the mighty Mustangs … in other words, pretty darn good themselves. Remarkably consistent from top to bottom, the Haybalers had wrestlers contest all 14 divisions; just one finished below third place.
Olejnik was happy with his team’s performance, but took his hat off to the superior squad from up the road.
“(The Mustangs) were running on all cylinders,” he said. “They’re not ranked No. 1 in TCAL and 10th in the state for nothing.”
