Everyone who either watched or participated in Thursday’s key Mesa League dual meet at Eastlake High School between the host Titans and Hilltop Lancers were in agreement: they had never seen anything quite like it in their lives.
Hilltop pulled off a 40-26 win in the match-up of teams with 3-0 league records. The win might be considered a mild upset.
But the final score was only half the story. The Lancers won the opening nine matches for an unexpected 40-0 lead. In fact, Hilltop clinched the dual meet victory between league heavyweights before Eastlake had scored a team point.
It was a definite eyebrow-raiser.
“All year long, we wrestled under the radar,” Hilltop coach Thomas Juarez explained. “We didn’t have our full team out there. I don’t think the other teams really knew much about us.”
The Titans found out quickly.
Carlos Callejas (113 pounds) opened the evening with a 6-5 decision to give the visitors a 3-0 lead on the scoreboard, and 120-pound teammate Joseph Torres followed with a pin with 0.8-second left in the second period to boost Hilltop to a 9-0 edge in team scoring.
Then the match that everyone agreed proved to be the turning point occurred at 126 pounds when Hilltop’s Matthew Lanzorotto was the recipient of a surprise pin at 3:26 in his match against Eastlake’s Isai Garcia.
Garcia held a 7-0 lead on Lanzorotto and a victory would have put the hosts squarely back into the flow of the dual. But when Garcia attempted to tilt Lanzorotto across his body in an effort to score more points, the Titan mat man instead rocked back, placing his shoulders on the mat and, in effect, pinned himself.
The Lancer bench jumped to its feet with cheers at the sudden turn of events, now leading 15-0 on the scoreboard.
“When Matthew Lanzorotto was able to stay off his back and pin their guy, that was a pivotal turning point in the win,” Juarez said. “We didn’t expect to get six points.”
The Hilltop scoring parade took off from there.
Giany Barbosa followed Lanzorotto’s upset pin with a come-from-behind 9-6 decision over Eastlake’s Sir Avington at 132 pounds. That made the score 18-0 in the Lancers’ favor.
Barbosa had trailed Avington by a score of 5-4 midway through the match.
Hilltop upped its lead to 24-0 on the mat when Adrian Avina pinned Ethan Hill with 32 seconds left in the opening period of their 138-pound match.
Alberto Garcia then made the score 28-0 in the Lancers’ favor with a 17-7 major decision over the Titans’ Armando Castro at 145 pounds.
The depth in Eastlake’s line-up is skewed toward the heavier weights. But that didn’t faze the visitors too much.
Micah Mendillo was unable to stop the hemorrhaging for the hosts when he was pinned with 33 seconds elapsed in the second period by Dominic Esparza.
34-0 Hilltop.
The Lancers scored their eighth consecutive win to start the dual (there are 14 weight classes total) when Bryton Madarang eked out a 9-6 decision over Carlos Vazquez at 160 pounds. That increased Hilltop’s lead to 37-0 and, with just six matches remaining, assured the visitors of a mathematical edge in team scoring.
Seamus Beyerle added frosting to the Lancers’ already sweet cake when he scored a somewhat bizarre 10-9 win over Sebastian Smith in a match-up of 170-pounders. Smith led Beyerle for almost the entire match before being penalized for locking hands in the dying seconds, and then yielded an escape, to erase a 9-8 advantage.
Gasp! 40-0 Hilltop.
The Titans scored wins in the final five matches, including three by pin, to make the final score more respectable.
Josh Pultorak pinned Michael Nieves in 3:41 at 182 pounds: 40-6 Lancers.
Ronnie Sallee pinned Alejandro Torres in 1:32 at 195 pounds: 40-12 Hilltop.
Ricky Renteria pinned David Velazquez in 3:32 at 220 pounds: 40-18 Lancers.
Jake Suggett out-pointed Josue Dario Cano, 8-3, in a clash of heavyweights to tack on three more points to Eastlake’s team total. Lastly, 106-pounder Ben Martinez scored an 18-2 technical fall against Nate Lara for five more Titan points.
However, the damage had been inflicted by the visitors earlier.
“We came out and wrestled with the intensity we needed to show that we could be champions,” Jaurez said.
Hilltop, now 4-0 in league duals, hosts Olympian (3-1 in league duals) to close out regular season competition on Thursday, Feb. 5. Match time is 6 p.m. at Hilltop.
There is meaning to the season-ender. With a win, Olympian could force either a co- or even a tri-championship to end the season between itself, Hilltop and Eastlake (also 3-1 in league duals).
“One more,” Juarez said knowingly.
