LARKSPUR — Now is a good time to begin the peaking process if you”re a high school wrestler.
The Upper Lake Cougars, perhaps to a man, are getting close, according to Upper Lake High School head coach Tom Cox.
“Our kids are wrestling the best they ever have as a group,” Cox said on Monday after watching the Cougars take apart the competition during the North Coast Section Division III Team Dual Championships on Saturday at Redwood High School in Larkspur.
The Cougars beat Athenian 81-0, Clear Lake 53-15 and perhaps the best Hoopa team in that school”s history, 42-26, to repeat as NCS Division III champions.
“I”ve never been as proud of a whole bunch of kids as I am now,” Cox said. “Last year we had a senior group and by this time we were trying to hold on. This year with all of these young guys we”re wrestling better than we”ve been.”
Upper Lake hit a low spot three weeks ago during a dual meet against Middletown, according to Cox.
“We beat them, but we didn”t wrestle well at all,” he said. “Since then we”ve really responded.”
Hoopa was the biggest obstacle standing between the Cougars and a second straight Team Dual title and, by chance, the first three weight division matches were the three Cox had pegged as being the most critical.
“I figured we had to win two of the three,” Cox said of the 132-, 137- and 142-pound matches. “But we won all three.”
Ward Beecher captured a 6-3 decision at 132 pounds, then Nick Davidson, who might have had the best day of all the Upper Lake wrestlers, scored a 17-0 technical fall at 137 pounds. He won his other two matches by pin.
“As a sophomore to keep plugging along and improving like he has, it just shows how our young guys keep getting better and better,” Cox said.
Bruce Tucker”s 9-2 decision at 142 pounds completed the sweep and the Cougars went on to beat Hoopa by a comfortable margin.
Davidson didn”t have the Upper Lake monopoly on going 3-0 at the tournament. Angel Hernandez (105), Fwee Chao (114), Travis Coleman (121), Beecher (132), Tucker (142), Brandon Sneathen (162), Ben Britten (191) and Jacob Warner (287) also went undefeated.
One of the biggest upsets of the day came in a 121-pound battle between Coleman and Clear Lake”s Jake Humble. Wrestling with a sore elbow, Coleman edged Humble 13-9 in what Cox called a “barnburner of a match.”
Beecher at 132 pounds wrestled all three of his matches with an improvised mask to protest a gash over his eye that required stitches to close, the result of an accident during P.E. class at Upper Lake.
Also for Upper Lake, Robert Simondi went 2-1 at 127 pounds, losing only to a Hoopa opponent; Bradley Brackett went 2-1 at 154 pounds, losing only to a Hoopa wrestler by 7-4 decision; and Josh Gray (147) and Charlie Coburn (173) each went 1-2.
One of the more remarkable performances by a Cougar was Sneathen, who bumped up from his normal weight class of 142 to wrestle at 162.
“Some of the best wrestlers in the tournament were in that weight class and we decided to move Brandon up to give ourselves the best chance to win (the team title),” Cox said. “He did a great job.”
The Cougars received a plaque and a pennant for their team victory. They can pick up another pennant on Saturday when they travel to Lower Lake to compete in the Coastal Mountain Conference Championships. Upper Lake went 8-0 in dual competition and can win the outright CMC title by placing ahead of St. Helena.
The Cougars are the defending CMC champs.
The NCS Champion-ships, the qualifier for the state finals, are the weekend of Feb. 26-27.
