They were a select few this season — three, to be exact. But Eastlake’s Mike Johnson, Otay Ranch’s Mustafa Farha and San Ysidro’s Pablo Perez all proved they had the proverbial right stuff to emerge from last Saturday’s San Diego Section boys divisional wrestling championships with coveted individual weight class championships.
“My heart was pounding, I was just so happy,” exclaimed Johnson, a junior, who upset the No. 2-, No. 3- and No. 4-seeded wrestlers in his 138-pound weight class at the Division I tournament at Otay Ranch High School. “Everything started to go quiet. I couldn’t hear anything.”
Johnson, a finalist at the Metro Conference championship tournament on Feb. 6, said he didn’t believe any of his wins over higher-seeded wrestlers at the divisional tournament should necessarily be considered upsets.
“He wrestled like we knew he could wrestle,” Eastlake head coach Troy Vierra explained. “We haven’t always said that this year. The only tournament he made it to the finals was in Metros (conference finals). He’d go to tournaments and wrestle the No. 1 seed really tough but never finish a tournament (in the finals). He had to go the hard way to place. He was seeded sixth, so he had to wrestle some tough guys.
“He also dropped down a weight, which was difficult.”
Johnson (26-13) finished 4-0 en route to claiming his gold medal. He won by a 7-3 decision over third-seeded Salvador Carrillo of Helix in the quarterfinals and then captured a 6-2 decision from second-seeded Doug Watkins of Escondido in the semifinals.
Johnson faced Rancho Buena Vista’s Eddie Escamilla in the finals after Escamilla defeated top-seeded Kymani Yambao of San Marcos by a 7-1 decision in the semis.
Johnson defeated Escamilla by a score of 6-3.
“It’s unreal,” Johnson said. “I knew I had a shot at taking it, but I knew it wouldn’t be easy.”
Farha, a 220-pounder ranked near the top of his weight class in the section, also won a championship at the Division I tournament. He had two pins before recording a 9-7 decision over Carlsbad’s Luis Torres in the championship round to improve to 28-5 on the season.
Farha, the reigning Metro champion, was buttressed by an early 6-0 lead over Torres.
“He was shorter than me, so I wrestled with my stance lower,” said Farha, who was the top-seeded wrestler in the weight class. “I was looking for my angles, my shots. It was my day, I worked so hard with my dad and my coach.”
Perez, who earned the outstanding upper weight award at this year’s conference tournament, won the 160-pound title at the Division II tournament at Westview High School by recording a 7-5 decision over Poway’s Hampton Boyd, the No. 1 seed at January’s prestigious Raul Huerta Memorial tournament.
The Metro Conference had two other finalists:
Hilltop’s Alberto Garcia placed runner-up in his 126-pound weight class at the Division II championship tournament while Mater Dei Catholic’s Christian Paquian-Macias took second place in his 132-pound weight class at the Division IV tournament at Madison High School.
Mat quest
Eastlake advanced seven wrestlers to the Division I semifinals and had three go through to the finals. Ben Martinez (113 pounds) and Jake Suggett (heavyweight) both joined Johnson in the finals.
Both Martinez and Suggett placed second in their weight classes.
Martinez (29-6) dropped an 11-1 major decision to RBV’s Bernie Truax (22-3) while Suggett (21-4) lost a 3-2 double overtime match to San Marcos’s Oscar Solano (32-7).
Martinez, top-seeded in his weight, opened the tournament with pins of 45 and 33 seconds to uphold his No. 1-seeded position. He defeated Calexico’s Gustavo Benitez, 6-2, in the semifinals.
Suggett, seeded second in the weight, took a one-point lead over top-seeded Solano in the first overtime period but ceded an escape point and was penalized for a locking hands infraction as the second overtime expired to absorb a dramatic loss.
“If I lost control, it was just barely,” Suggett noted.
Eastlake’s other semifinalists included Armando Castro (145), Tanner Waller (182), Josh Pultorak (195) and Ricky Renteria (220). Pultorak coughed up an early lead in dropping a 7-6 decision to San Marcos; Carlos Matamoros while Renteria lost by a narrow 1-0 margin to Carlsbad’s Torres.
Both Matamoros and Torres went on to place runner-up in their weight classes.
Renteria battled back to place third while Castro placed fifth, and Pultorak and Waller were both sixth.
Also for the Titans, Carlos Vazquez (170) was fifth while Jesus Gavaldon (120) and Kevin Moyna (126) both placed eighth.
The top eight place-finishers received medals at the Division I tournament while the top seven place-winners qualified to compete at this weekend’s San Diego Masters state qualifying tournament at Christian High School. The Titans, who finished fifth in the team standings, had 10 medalists and eight Masters qualifiers.
Otay Ranch, which placed eighth in the team standings, had four wrestlers advance to the semifinals and settled for five Masters qualifiers.
Brandon McCurdy (120), Sithara Diunugala (152) and Jonathan Wu (170) joined Farha in the semifinals. All lost, however, to drop to the consolation semifinals.
McCurdy, Diunugala and Wu all finished third. Also for the Mustangs, Christopher Jennen placed fifth at 106 pounds.
Takedowns
Bonita Vista (15th in the D1 team standings) had two medalists: Jordan Bendorf (eighth at 106) and George Harlan (third at 285). Harlan, who dropped a 3-0 decision to Suggett in the semifinals, is 26-7 on the season; Bendorf, who is an alternate for Masters, is 21-12.
Chula Vista (16th in the D1 team standings) had two medalists: Anthony Ortiz (fourth at 120) and Carlos Cazares (eighth at 195).
San Marcos and Rancho Buena Vista renewed their championship rivalry from the preceding week’s section dual championship tournament. The Knights advanced seven wrestlers to last weekend’s CIF finals (winning four) while the Longhorns advanced six (winning three).
San Marcos won the team title with 242.5 points, followed by RBV with 212 points and Helix with 155.5 points. Vista edged Eastlake for fourth place 147.5 to 138.5 points. Mira Mesa was sixth with 125.56 points
Metro Conference to be represented at girls state tournament
The California state girls wrestling championship tournament will take place Feb. 26-27 at the Visalia Convention Center. The Metro Conference will be represented by five wrestlers, including four recently crowned San Diego Section champions.
Eastlake High School brought seven entrants to the Feb. 12-13 section finals and qualified a conference-best three for the state meet. Isabela Hook (123 pounds) and Loraine Tejano (152 pounds) both won their weight classes while Jasmine Stewart placed second in her 118-pound division.
The top two place-finishers in each weight class at the section finals qualified to compete in the state tournament.
Hilltop’s Jasmine Plasencia won her 103-pound weight class to qualify for the state meet while San Ysidro’s Isabel Flores won her 113-pound weight class to do the same.
Tejano enters this weekend’s state tournament with a 22-1 record while Hook is 21-3 and Stewart is 12-6.
Tejano’s lone loss on the season was to San Pasqual’s Maria Valdez. However, the Eastlake wrestler successfully avenged that defeat by pinning Valdez in 5:33 at the section finals.
Hook pinned Clairemont’s Anna-Marie Maskalenko in 1:18 to win her weight class, while Plasencia pinned RBV’s Trinity Oredina in 5:10 and Flores won by a 4-1 decision over RBV’s Chelsea Pacheco.
Stewart lost by a 56-second pin administered by RBV’s Iesha Washington.
Eastlake placed fourth in the team standings. Rancho Buena Vista captured the team title with 152.5 points, followed by Clairemont, San Pasqual, Eastlake and Westview. Only five points separated the second- and fifth-place teams.
“It was really very close,” EHS coach D.J. Mancillas explained. “RBV was first and after that there were a large number of teams that were close. We were fourth with 106 points. Clairemont was second with 109 points. San Pasqual was third with 108 points and Westview was fifth with 104 points.”
Mancillas said the Eastlake program took another step forward this season.
“The two champions were the first two CIF champions at our school,” Mancillas said. “That was a big thing for our program.”
A total of 41 schools were represented at this year’s section finals. Wrestlers from Montgomery, Mar Vista, San Ysidro, Castle Park, Olympian, Bonita Vista, Chula Vista, Sweetwater and High Tech Chula Vista also participated.
San Ysidro placed seventh among teams while High Tech CV was eighth, followed by Mar Vista in ninth place.
