Bay Area in Bakersfield

News and notes on Bay Area wrestlers at the CIF state wrestling championships.

The Clovis High School wrestling team entered the 2011-12 season with the lofty goal of beating Central Section rival Bakersfield’s team points record at the California Interscholastic Federation tournament.

Goal: Attained. And then some.

The Cougars obliterated the Drillers’ former mark of 226.5, set in 2002, scoring 256.5 at Bakersfield’s Rabobank Arena to run away with a record 10th team title. Calvary Chapel-Santa Ana is second with seven team championships. Ten Cougars won medals (8th place or better), four advanced to finals, and two won individual titles.

It was the second straight CIF crown and the fourth in eight years for Clovis, which topped Bakersfield 186-177 in 2011. This year wasn’t quite so close. Second place Bakersfield was nearly doubled up, scoring a respectable but still-distant 129.5. 

Clovis had already secured a wining total on Day One, scoring 164.5 through four rounds of championship and consolation matches.

Poway finished third overall with 113 points.

De La Salle notched its second straight top-five finish, placing fourth for the second year in a row with 97 points.

The Spartans sent eight wrestlers to Bakersfield, and every one of them scored a point. Four secured individual medals, led by Alex Abono’s second-place finish at 145. In the final, second-ranked Abono dropped a tough 8-1 decision to top seed, and state No. 1, Willie Fox of Gilroy. Abono’s second-place finish is the highest individual finish in Spartan history.

Joe Moita was third at 126. William Walker was fifth at 195, and Jon Jay Chavez was seventh at 132.

The Bay Area’s lone individual champion was College Park’s Brian Sergi at 138.

Déjà Vu

Newark Memorial’s Victor Pereira has to be sick of the name Joey Davis. Davis (Santa Fe) topped Pereira 9-5 for the 152 title in 2011. This year, both grapplers bumped up to 160. Once again, they met in the final. And once again, Davis came out ahead, this time notching a 12-5 decision for his second straight CIF title in his third straight finals appearance. He was second at 135 in 2010.

Rank and File

Say what you will about rankings not meaning much. In the case of the 220 pounders, the rankers got it just about perfect. Antioch’s Kyle Clark entered the tournament ranked No. 3 in the state. He dropped a tough, 8-4 decision to No. 2 ranked Austin Lobsinger of West Valley-Cottonwood in the semifinal, then battled his way into the third-place match. There, he topped Wasco’s Sean Medley to finish in reality right where he was ranked. Lobsinger, incidentally, lost to No. 1 ranked JT Goodwin (Bear Creek-Stockton) 3-2 in the final.

On the Podium

The California Championship Tournament ranks among the top 4-5 state level wrestling tournaments in the country. That means that if you earned a spot on the podium at the end of the night, you DID something. Here are some other medallists from around the region:

106 — Troy Lakin (Clayton Valley), fifth; 126 — Jake Smith (Newark Memorial) fifth; 145 — Adam Hendrickson (Healdsburg) sixth; 152 — Jorge Barajas (St. Francis-Mountain View) fourth; 160 — Matthew Tsarnas (Healdsburg) fifth; 170 — Dylan Morris (Redwood-Larkspur) seventh; 195 — Danny Chaid (Bellarmine-San Jose) third; 220 — Alex Encarnacion (College Park) eighth.

— Bill Kolb