MIDDLETOWN — Sutter High School beat Upper Lake by a mere three points to win the team title on Saturday at the Mustang Invitational wrestling tournament in Middletown.
It”s the second time this season Sutter, a wrestling powerhouse in the Northern Section, has edged out Upper Lake for a tournament title — the Huskies defeated the Cougars by eight points last month at the Holiday Invitational in Fort Bragg.
“If we were going to lose to anybody … that”s a very good team,” Upper Lake assistant coach Ron Campos said.
Upper Lake came away with three firsts, four seconds and three thirds. Weight class winners for the Cougars were Ward Beecher at 135 pounds, Nick Davison at 140 pounds and Emily Knispel at 125 pounds (one of two girls” weight classes).
Beecher beat Lower Lake”s Brandon Painchaud in a rematch of the 135-pound finals won by Painchaud last month at the Liberty Tournament in Brentwood. The final score — 4-3 in an ultimate tiebreaker — was indicative of the battle staged by the two wrestlers. Painchaud was just seconds away from a 3-2 victory in regulation when he was assessed a penalty point for stalling.
“In my mind Brandon won the match, but that”s taking nothing away from Beecher who is a great wrestler,” Lower Lake coach Ed Fuchs said. “The next time they wrestle it”s going to be quite the match.”
“It was just a great match,” Campos said of Beecher, who finished the two-day tournament with a 6-0 record.
Davison won all seven of his tournament matches to improve to 17-2 on the season. It was his second tourney championship this season (he also won at Fort Bragg).
Knispel won all three of her matches by pin.
Upper Lake”s second-place medalists were Tony Lopez at 103 pounds, Travis Coleman at 119 pounds, Robert Simondi at 130 pounds and Charlie Coburn at 160 pounds. Taking home third-place medals were Bruce Tucker at 145 pounds, Bradley Brackett at 152 pounds and Joey Valdez at 215 pounds.
“Our kids wrestled better than they have all season,” Campos said.
Clear Lake
The Clear Lake Cardinals finished third in the 18-team standings with 149 points and had two weight division winners ? Matt Lockwood at 171 pounds and Mike Reynolds at 189 pounds. Robby Hammers made it to the 152-pound finals and came in second.
“Everyone did great and it was a lot tougher tournament than in the past,” Clear Lake coach Ronnie Campos said. “We had people out sick and injured, which caused us to give up five weight classes. Third (place) was great for not having a full team.”
Mike DeAngelo overcame a strained back sustained in the semifinals to finish third at 140 pounds, according to Campos. DeAngelo won his final two matches by pin.
Lower Lake
Though his team slipped from third in the team standings a year ago at Middletown to fifth this year, Fuchs had nothing but praise for the Trojans, who like the Cardinals were not at full strength for the tournament.
“I”m very proud of them finishing fifth considering we were missing a couple of guys,” Fuchs said.
Two Lower Lake wrestlers reached the finals — Painchaud, who narrowly missed against Beecher, and Cody Torres in the heavyweight division.
Coming off a win in an ultimate tiebreaker in the semifinals, Torres lost in the finals to Bryce Melani of Sutter. In fact, Melani pinned Torres, the first time that”s happened to Lower Lake”s heavyweight this season (he”s 18-4 overall).
Melani trailed 5-3 in the final seconds before scoring a reversal and pin.
Two Lower Lake sophomores — Thomas Cross at 160 pounds and Thaddeus Wetmore at 171 pounds — finished third and fourth, respectively.
Kelseyville
Jeffrey Ponce of Kelseyville pinned Jose Arreguin of Willits in the 112-pound championship match to lead the Knights to a seventh-place finish.
Ponce is undefeated on the season at 15-0.
Also for the Knights, Jordan Brown reached the 215-pound finals where he lost to No. 1 seed Alex Ryan. Brown improved to 12-3 on the season.
Jacob Martinek (112 pounds) finished third at 112 pounds to improved to 12-4.
Middletown
The host Middletown Mustangs finished 10th overall in the team standings. Unseeded Paul Rogers had the best individual finish with a second at 189 pounds. He upset the No. 1 and No. 4 seeds before falling to No. 2 seed Reynolds of Clear Lake in the finals.
Prior to the championship matches in all the weight divisions Saturday night, a special ceremony was held during which the tournament was renamed the Dennis Jensen Invitational in honor of the former Middletown coach who started the tourney and the school”s wrestling program. Jensen, who now splits time between Lake County and Oregon, was on hand for the ceremony.
“The dedication to Dennis Jensen was great,” Middletown coach Troy Brierly said. “He got a giant ovation from the crowd. We had a ton of current and alumni wrestlers and coaches gather in the middle mat to honor him, some going back all the way to the first team Middletown ever had.
“Dennis seemed very happy to have this moment with so many wrestlers and coaches surrounding him. I was proud to have been able to do this for him,” Brierly added.
The two-day competition proved to be a financial success as well, according to Brierly, with good-sized crowds attending both days.
