Escalon’s three girl wrestlers have all advanced to the Masters Meet, putting in solid performances at the Sac-Joaquin Section CIF South Regionals on Saturday at Enochs.

“The top eight (per weight class) qualify and all three girls qualified,” said head coach Derek Scott.

Qualifying with a fifth place finish at 113 pounds was Adela Ley-Han, going 3-2 on the day.

“She won all three of her matches in overtime or by one point and has worked hard over the last couple of years,” Scott said. “Going 3-2 at 123 pounds and finishing fourth was Julia Casillas.”

In her first year of wrestling, Casillas is still a bit green but has made tremendous improvement, noted Scott.

“Two of her three wins, she was down by more than five points and came back to win by pin,” the coach explained.

It was an outstanding tournament for Mikayla Vega, who went 4-0 with four pins in her matches to place first.

No one managed to even score a point against Vega in the four matches, Scott said of her dominating performance in the 108-pound bracket.

“She is just solid, she just mauled people,” Scott said of Vega.

All three will advance to the Masters later this month and Scott noted the efforts of coach Atom Garcia and assistants Bryan Toy and Adrian Cortes as helping the girls prepare well for the regional event.

“That’s actually what wrestling is supposed to be,” Scott said of the girls’ performances.

Earlier in the week, the Cougars as a team were on the road at Modesto Christian to close out the regular dual meet season in Trans-Valley League action.

“The JV won by forfeit and finished the dual meet season undefeated at 8-0, the varsity also won, 57-20,” Scott said. “We finished at 3-2 in TVL duals, 7-3 overall and third in the TVL.”

Standout matches in the MC dual were Garrett Nash, winning by pin at 113 pounds and Erik Espinosa winning 3-2 at 220.

The varsity Cougars will go to Ripon for the TVL finals on Saturday, Feb. 10, with the top four in each weight class there qualifying to move on to the Division 5 Section Meet.