The Steele Canyon High School girls wrestling team had a great start to last Saturday’s Division I San Diego Section championship tournament on campus. However, the Lady Cougars were overtaken in the later rounds by defending champion Olympian High School to place runner-up in this year’s 27-team field.
The Lady Eagles finished with194 points while the Lady Cougars finished with 174 points. In tournament competition, that’s close.
Olympian head coach Jay Lord Fabunan said his team had to overcome adversity to claim the title, which made the team’s latest divisional championship even more satisfying.
“We entered the tournament missing two weight classes,” Fabunan pointed out. “We lost our 237, Elisa Najera, to injury during the Metro Conference. We faced a lot of hurdles throughout the season that we had to overcome and, then getting to the tournament, we also had half the team fall into the consolation round after their first matches in match ups we thought were winnable.
“However, we rallied as team, really happy to have Coach Levi Harbin on the team; he just knows the right things to tell the girls to get them in the right mindset. The team ripped off 20 wins in the consolation rounds while we had three finalists.”
When the last whistle sounded on the mats at Steele Canyon High School, the Lady Eagles had tallied up two individual weight class champions (Alina Solis at 139 pounds and Daia Kawashiro at 152 pounds), one second-place finisher (Isabella Ramirez at 103 pounds), two third-place finishers (Natasha Mason at 108 pounds and Makenna Harbin at 133 pounds), three fourth-place finishers (Breanna Reynoso at 113 pounds, Cheyenne Sandoval at 118 pounds and Isabella King at 123 pounds) and three fifth-place finishers (Keagan Alatiw at 128 pounds, Jay Nugent at 162 pounds and Sophia Gonzalez at 172 pounds).
The top four place-finishers at both the Division I and Division II championship tournaments qualified for this year’s Masters state-qualifying tournament Feb. 18 at Mission Hills High School in what will be a history-making first as both boys and girls wrestlers will compete alongside each other for elite berths to the state finals.
The boys Masters is scheduled Feb. 17-18 at Mission Hills High School following four qualifying divisional tournaments this Saturday.
Olympian continues to set the pace among local girls teams with eight Masters qualifiers and three alternates (fifth-place finishers).
Southern exposure
Eastlake (ninth place, 57 points), Otay Ranch (16th place, 39 points), Chula Vista (17th place, 38 points), Sweetwater (21st place, 11 points), San Ysidro (24th place, four points) and Bonita Vista (26th place, one point) all participated in the Division I finals alongside CIF champion Olympian.
Finalists included Otay Ranch’s Alina Carino (second place, 108 pounds), and Eastlake’s Isabella Lamadrid (second place, 118 pounds).
Eastlake finished the day with three place-finishers. Besides Lamadrid, they included Isabella Kennedy (fifth place, 123 pounds) and Arianni Benitez (fifth place, 191 pounds).
Chula Vista had two place-finishers: Anaya Rhodes (third place, 118 pounds) and Glennis Lopez (sixth place, 103 pounds). Rhodes is a Masters qualifier.
Otay Ranch’s Maliya Lumahan (103 pounds) placed fourth to as another Masters qualifier while Emily Serapio (118 pounds) represented Sweetwater on the awards stand in sixth place.
The top four place-finishers received medals at both the Division I and Division II finals.
Overall, 17 Metro mat women qualified for this year’s Masters state-qualifying tournament, including 12 from the Division I field and five more from the Division II field.
Duel in the desert
Brawley won the Division II team title in runaway fashion at Holtville High School in Imperial County. The Lady Wildcats piled up an insurmountable 270.5 points to runner-up Holtville’s 138.5 points.
Participating Metro Conference teams included Montgomery (third place, 80 points), Mar Vista (16th place, 44 points), Castle Park (21st place, 35 points), Hilltop (22nd place, 34 points), Mater Dei Catholic (25th place, 30 points) and Southwest (33rd place, six points).
The top four place-finishers from the Division II championship tournament also advanced to compete in this year’s Masters tournament.
Two Metro mat women came home from Imperial Valley with individual division championships: Mar Vista’s Tavia Osthimer captured the 128-pound individual championship while Montgomery’s Evelynn Coronado won the 237-pound heavyweight title.
Both help lead the conference’s list of Masters qualifiers.
South County tallied five Masters qualifiers from the Division II tournament. They also included Montgomery’s Adrianna Ramirez (third place, 152 pounds), Castle Park’s Ma Vega (fourth place, 108 pounds) and Mater Dei Catholic’s Ivanna Ruiz (fourth place, 162 pounds).
Montgomery finished the tournament with four place-finishers. Besides Ramirez and Coronado, they also included Cierra Montes (sixth place, 133 pounds) and Eva Barbosa (fifth place, 139 pounds).
Masters alternates included Mater Dei Catholic’s Alyssa Mechling (fifth place, 133 pounds), Hilltop’s Debora Velazquez (fifth place, 152 pounds) and Barbosa.
Sixth-place finishers included Mar Vista’s Lexus Toscano (108), Hilltop’s Keilani Speyrer (139) and Castle Park’s Victoria Trujillo (162).
The top four place-finishers at Masters qualify for the state championship tournament Feb. 23-25 in Bakersfield.
Ladies first
Overall, the Metro Conference snared four individual weight class champions between the Division I and Division II finals – two in each tournament.
Solis, a two-time individual division champion, became a two-time CIF champion after defeating top-seeded Jaala Degannes of Mission Hills by an 11-1 major decision. Solis was seeded third in the tournament because of an upset head-to-head loss against Kate Wood of San Marcos at the Queen of the Lake Tournament in January. Solis avenged that loss with a pin in the semifinals on her way to the finals.
Solis opened the day with consecutive three pins while adding the major decision in the championship match.
Kawashiro, who finished runner-up in her weight class at last year’s divisional finals, earned her this year’s CIF title after defeating Confidence Nkoroh of Mission Hills by a 3:29 pin in the finals. Kawashiro scored back-to-back pins to reach the championship round – 2:11 in the quarterfinals and 26 seconds in the semifinals.
Osthimer, the lower weight MVP at the preceding Metro Conference championship tournament, scored three pins and a minor decision in becoming a Division II champion. She pinned West Hills’ Kayla Lim in 3:13 in the finals.
Coronado recorded two pins, a 9-0 decision and a win by injury default to earn her spot atop the awards stand. Coronado won by an injury default over Brawley’s Sevyn Diaz in the finals.
Olympian’s Ramirez was seeded fifth but upset fourth-seeded Praff Rafaeli of Mission Hills in quarterfinals and then upset top-seeded Kaiya Lopes of Rancho Bernardo in the semifinals.
The upstart Lady Eagle eventually lost by a first-period pin to Bella Sevillano of Steele Canyon in the championship round.
Carino posted a 16-3 major decision in her first match and followed with consecutive pins to reach the championship round where she lost by a first-period fall to Mira Mesa’s Brita McCaskill.
Lamadrid navigated her way to the finals on the strength of two first-period pins and an 8-0 minor decision to meet up with Vista’s Melina Lopez, who won with a first-period fall.
Rhodes finished 4-1 with two pins and two decisions. She defeated Olympian’s Sandoval twice, including by a 13-9 decision in the third-place match.
Montgomery’s Ramirez recorded four consecutive wins in the consolation round to place third after losing her opening match. She scored three consecutive pins in the single-elimination rounds before ending her mat odyssey with a medical forfeit victory against Valley Center’s Iris Diaz.
The Lady Eagles owned the consolation rounds. Mason avenged her first-round loss to Steele Canyon’s Valeria Anaya in consolation semifinals to eventually place third in her weight class and Harbin, who had been ill prior to the tournament, showed a lot of grit after losing in double overtime against Rancho Bernardo’s Alyssa Jones in the semifinals and then winning out with two consolation matches to capture third place.
Nugent recorded a three-second pin in her first consolation match to keep the momentum rolling.
“It was just an overall great day for us,” Fabunan underscored.
