Surprising to few, Gilroy High wrestling walked away with the
Tri-County Athletic League title Saturday.
Surprising to few, Gilroy High wrestling walked away with the Tri-County Athletic League title Saturday.
It is the sixth-straight year the Mustangs have won the league title as a team, making Gilroy the only school to win a TCAL title in wrestling since the league was formed in 2002.
“We did great,” Gilroy coach Armando Gonzalez said. “Seven champs, three runners-up – it keeps us right on track to what we hope to achieve.”
The next achievement would be another notch on the historical belt.
Gilroy will attempt to add to its record streak of five-straight Central Coast Section titles. While earlier this season the team was quietly talking about breaking the overall points record it set two seasons ago, with only 12 wrestlers advancing to the section meet in two weeks, the focus is now on just making sure the team doesn’t leave the main goal up for grabs.
The Mustangs’ seven individual champions – Jesse Delgado, Martin Gonzalez, Tim Ibanez, Rodney Balajadia, Ethan Ogle, Hunter Collins and Jesse Rogers – and three second-place finishers – Travis Sakamoto, Tim Caspary and Luis Barragan – helped give Gilroy a score of 268.5. Adam Rosso and Vincent Aboytes both took third for Gilroy and Sean Hale just missed fifth place, which would have qualified the junior for CCS, by taking sixth.
San Benito finished in second at 233 and Palma finished third at 225.
“As a team, we showed up,” Ibanez said of the Mustangs’ overall performance. “Everyone was pretty much on their game.”
While Gilroy was always the favorite coming into the tournament, that didn’t stop several finals matchups from providing fireworks. Six championship matches pitted rival schools San Benito and Gilroy against one another, with the Mustangs getting the upper hand in four of those contests. Delgado held off San Benito’s Junior Davilla in a 12-7 decision, Martin Gonzalez pinned Zach Rodriguez, Balajadia beat Morris Stevens in overtime 4-2 and Hunter Collins, winning his fourth career TCAL title, pinned Manny Tovar.
San Benito’s champions against Gilroy included Josh Ramirez, who won a very physical match over Gilroy’s Travis Sakamoto 7-2, and Fernando Lucatero, who beat Tim Caspary 13-3.
While winning CCS is a goal that will take all 12 wrestlers to achieve, doing well in state is certainly something that is not far from the Musatngs’ mind.
Coach Gonzalez said he has a plan in to get his guys ready.
“The next 10 days are gonna be hell, for sure,” he said.
