NEWARK — Upper Lake High School”s Robbie Avery, the No. 2 seed at 140 pounds, lived up to his advance billing on Friday as the North Coast Section Wrestling Championships got under way in Newark.
Avery won all three of his matches to reach today”s semifinals, where he”ll face No. 3 seed Nate Vincent of Dublin. If Avery wins, he”ll advance to the 140-pound championship match tonight against either No. 1 seed David Rios of Liberty or No. 4 seed Carlos Basurto of Healdsburg, the other two semifinalists.
A victory over Vincent also guarantees Avery a trip to the CIF State Championships next weekend in Baksersfield as the top four in each weight division automatically advance.
While Avery was the only Lake County wrestler to reach the semifinals, six others are still alive in the consolation bracket and can still finish as high as third place as the tournament concludes today.
The list of day-one survivors includes:
— Upper Lake”s Brandon Sneathen and Lower Lake”s Tyler Johnson at 135 pounds. Both Sneathen and Johnson won their first two matches before falling in the quarterfinals — Sneathen was pinned by No. 5 seed Brisk Kannel of Livermore, and Johnson dropped a 15-3 decision to No. 2 seed Wesley Young of Healdsburg. Earlier in the day, Sneathen pinned No. 4 seed Sam Worth of Miramonte in the second round, and Johnson decisioned No. 7 seed Ben Rowden of Montgomery, also in the second round.
— Upper Lake”s James Lolonis won three of his four matches at 103 pounds. After taking his first match by pin, he dropped an 8-5 decision to No. 2 Kristian Blanco of James Logan in the second round. Lolonis bounced back to win by pin in his first consolation match and he took a 4-0 decision in the ensuing match.
— Middletown”s Taylor Hoefer is 3-1 at 152 pounds. Unlike Lolonis, he lost his first match before winning three straight in the consolation bracket, including a 17-second pin of Bryce Lee of Newark Memorial. He won his next two matches by decision.
— Upper Lake”s Randy Dickinson and Lower Lake”s Justin Harrison are still alive at 215 pounds although they took different routes to the consolation bracket. Dickinson, the No. 8 seed, won his first two to reach the quarterfinals, where he lost to No. 3 Kalafitoni Pole of James Logan by 8-4 decision. Harrison also won his first match but then fell into the consolation bracket with a 13-0 loss to No. 7 seed Ace Pittman of Deer Valley. Johnson won each of his first two matches in the consolation bracket, both by major decision.
“We had a pretty good day,” Upper Lake coach Tom Cox said of the Cougars, who are tied for 24th out of 87 schools in the team standings. “Our league (Coastal Mountain Conference) is really doing well, we have more people still going after the first day than we”ve had in a real long time.”
Avery had the best day of all, which is really no surprise. He finished sixth at the NCS tournament a year ago and he”s trying to become only the second wrestler in the school”s history to advance to the state tournament, joining Leonard Meyer (1985).
Avery pinned his first opponent in just 73 seconds, then won a 5-3 nail-biter against David Wilson of Mission. In the quarterfinal round, Avery dominated Brian Maloney of DeLaSalle, winning by a 15-4 major decision.
Celebrating his 30th birthday on Friday was Lower Lake coach Ed Fuchs, who told both Johnson and Harrison that he wanted a present from each of them.
“Since I”m turning 30, I told them to go 3-0,” Fuchs said.
While Johnson and Harrison didn”t quite do that well, Fuchs said he was extremely pleased to be taking both wrestlers into day two. Now he wants them to win a medal, which go to the top eight in each division.
“This is the third year in a row Tyler has made it to day two and it”s the second year for Harrison, so this time I want them to bring home some hardware,” Fuchs said, noting that both wrestlers are looking for their first sectional medal.
