Starting the week off with a dual meet, Escalon hosted Sonora in Trans-Valley League wrestling on Wednesday, Jan. 7.
“I was a little worried going in; they had full teams for all three levels,” head coach Derek Scott said of the visiting Wildcats.
But all three Escalon teams – JV, girls, and varsity boys – got victories on the night.
The JV boys wrestled four matches, and they split 2-2. Escalon had the upper hand on the scoreboard, 30-12, when all the matches were over. Winning for Escalon were Brody Holck at 132 pounds, Kevin Rocha at 175.
“The varsity girls had four matches, we went 4-0 in those matches,” said Scott.
Final team score was 30-6 in favor of Escalon.
All four Lady Cougars got their wins by pin, first by Yahaira Munoz at 105 pounds, followed by Angeline Mills at 110, Trisha Freitas at 125 and Yesenia Marsellis at 140 pounds.
The varsity boys got a nail-biting 36-33 win over Sonora.
Big wins on the night came from Jacob Morales at 126 pounds and Leo Carrillo, who won by pin at 190 pounds to close out the win.
But, said Scott, the key to the team victory was the effort of Matthew Geddes, who came to Escalon from Big Valley. This was his first match for Escalon.
“He lost 12-9 but he did not get pinned and so that made the difference,” Scott said.
Then, 11 wrestlers made the trip to the Tim Brown Memorial Tournament in Sacramento, with an estimated 90 teams taking part.
“We were 2-9 after the first round,” Scott said. “But we had five guys make it to the second day.”
Moving on to day two but not placing were Conner McDowell at 132 pounds, Cole McDowell at 175 pounds, and Trey Herrera at heavyweight.
Two Cougars came home with medals.
“Going 6-2 and taking fifth place at 128 pounds was Houston Sizuela,” Scott said. “He looked very tough and has had back-to-back solid tournaments.”
At 144 pounds, Luca Cerasi put together an 8-1 record for the tournament.
“After losing his first match, he won eight matches in a row to take third place,” Scott said, adding that he knew it would be a good test for Cerasi to get past that opening day loss.
“His last two matches were big wins against guys in our Section,” Scott said.
