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Wrestlers Take Down Huskies, Show Well In Tournaments
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Taking home decisive wins, the varsity wrestlers were 74-6 winners over Hughson on Wednesday, Jan. 20 while the JV team came away with a 66-3 victory.

The Trans-Valley League meet saw just a handful of matches wrestled on the JV side of the schedule.

Four matches took place; three of them were wins for Escalon. Keenon Tavares won by pin at 125 pounds, Jaren Gonzales won by pin at 130 and Aaron Dizon took a win by pin at 140 pounds.

For the varsity, winners were Johnathon Costa, technical fall, 112 pounds; Christian Franks, win by pin, 119; Dylan Furtado, pin, 125; Jason Robbins, pin, 130; Brendan Wing, pin, 135; Adrian Cortes, 10-6 decision, 145. Also, Andrew Baroni, win by pin, 152 pounds; Shane Silveira, pin, 171; Travis James, win by pin, 215 pounds.

"Over the weekend, we went to two tournaments," added coach Derek Scott. "The JV team had 20-plus kids go to Enochs."

The JV Tournament there also featured varsity wrestlers who have not yet medaled in a varsity meet. Escalon did get some medalists in this event, paced by the first place showing of Aaron Dizon. Earning second place medals were Gus Campa and Derek Machado, with Max Yang and Scott Nunes each finishing third, in addition to Garrett Wade, Nick Payan, Victor Carrillo and Joey Gutierrez.

Fourth place medalists were Jobany Picazo, Chaz Welborn, Juan Silva, Danny Luna and Keenon Tavares.

Heading up the JV team for that trip were coaches Ryan Esteves and Pinder Dosanjh.

"They were most impressed with Dizon, Campa, Machado and Carrillo," Scott said of Cougar performances at the 33-team JV tournament. While the JV wrestlers were close by, the varsity hit the road for Friday and Saturday competition at the Tim Brown memorial tournament at Foothill in Sacramento.

"This was an 85 team tournament, there are not quite as many teams as at the Reno tourney but I think the quality is better," Scott said of his wrestlers facing stiff competition. "Ten guys went and four made the second day."

Competing just on Friday were Damon Hopkins at 112 pounds, Dylan Furtado at 125, Jason Robbins at 130, Anthony Munoz at 135, Adrian Cortes at 145 and Colin Keener at 160.

Battling some illness and injury, Scott said he was pleased that four out of the six won at least one match at the prestigious tournament.

Making it to the second day, Andrew Baroni finished up with a 3-2 mark at 152 pounds.

"He is getting better every week," said Scott.

Johnathon Costa, at 112, went 3-0 before going out on an injury default during the second day of competition.

"We didn't want to take any chances," Scott said of pulling him out of the competition.

Going 5-2 and taking seventh place honors were both Christian Franks and Brandon Williams.

"By far that was the best Christian has wrestled this year," Scott said of the two-day tourney. "Brandon faced three guys like him, on the bubble for a state meet berth, and he beat all three of them."

Scott said he and assistant coaches are aiming to get three or four wrestlers to the state meet this year, provided injury and illness don't wreak havoc as the season moves along. This week, they battled some illness but came away with solid efforts from the wrestlers that did compete.

On Wednesday, Jan. 27, the Cougars will host Senior Night and welcome Ripon to town for a league match starting at 6:30 p.m.

Saturday, Jan. 30 will feature a JV tournament in Elk Grove.