SAN FRANCISCO — Lower Lake High School entered 12 wrestlers in a tournament in San Francisco on Saturday and two of the team”s veterans, Cody Torres and Brandon Painchaud, brought home medals.
Torres, the No. 3 seed in the heavyweight division, did one better by placing second after winning three of four matches. His lone loss was a hard-fought 14-11 decision to an El Camino High School opponent in the finals.
“It was a tough match,” Lower Lake coach Ed Fuchs said.
The last championship match of the tournament, the gym was packed with onlookers.
“It was so loud,” Fuchs added.
Painchaud, the No. 4 seed at 135 pounds, ended up bringing home a fifth-place medal. He won his final match by injury default after going 2-1 in his first three matches.
Four other Lower Lake wrestlers missed a medal by the margin of one win. They were Ricardo Cuevas at 125 pounds, Jacob Grove at 145 pounds, Thomas Cross at 160 pounds and Thaddeus Wetmore at 171 pounds.
Cross” losses were of the quality variety, according to Fuchs, who said he lost to two solid opponents, one from Healdsburg and the other a state-ranked wrestler who was named the outstanding middleweight of the tournament.
“He had an awesome day,” Fuchs said of Cross.
Wetmore”s final loss came to a wrestler who went on to finish eighth.
Medals were awarded down to eight places in the 44-team field.
Lower Lake tied for 11th place in the team standings, which pleased Fuchs given that his squad is pretty young.
“I”m very happy,” Fuchs said. “We improved tremendously from where we were a week ago at the (Coastal Mountain Conference) Novice. If we can get that much better every week we”re going to have a great team at CMCs (conference tournament Feb. 19 in Middletown).”
Lower Lake competes in the Fort Bragg Tournament on Saturday.
