POINT ARENA — Point of order at Point Arena: The Upper Lake High School wrestling team is taking aim at a fourth straight Coastal Mountain Conference championship after opening the 2012 dual meet season with lopsided wins over Point Arena and Kelseyville on Wednesday night.
Upper Lake dispatched an improved Kelseyville squad 63-16, winning a handful of matches that Kelseyville coach Rob Brown thought the Knights would put on their side of the ledger.
“Upper Lake is Upper Lake, you can”t take anything away from them,” Brown said. “I don”t expect we should have beaten them, but there are two or three matches that we should have won (and didn”t).”
One of those, according to Brown, was at 108 pounds where Upper Lake”s Tony Lopez beat Jeffrey Ponce 8-6. Another was at 115 pounds, where Upper Lake”s Zeke Mendoza pinned Kelseyville”s Jacob Martinek in the second round.
Both teams forfeited one weight class — at 122 (Upper Lake) and 222 pounds (Kelseyville).
Kelseyville”s two wins in contested matches came at 128 pounds, where Wences Rojas scored a pin, and at 132 pounds, where Cristian Gomora notched a 12-2 decision.
The rest of the night belonged to Upper Lake.
Besides Lopez and Mendoza, Upper Lake winners were Ward Beecher by pin at 140 pounds, Travis Coleman by pin over Adryan Segura at 147 pounds, Bruce Tucker by pin over Aaron Copsey at 154 pounds, Nick Davison by pin over James Umbrello at 162 pounds, Bradley Brackett by pin at 172 pounds, Bill Robinson by pin at 184 pounds, Alex Kranich by pin at 197 pounds, and Jon Karlsson by pin in the heavyweight division.
“We had some kids really step up,” said Upper Lake coach Tom Cox, pointing to such wrestlers as Lopez, who beat Ponce for the first time in three tries this season, and to Robinson and Kranich.
“Bill Robinson is a junior, kind of a new kid to our lineup and he has a great night tonight with two pins,” Cox said. “We needed both Bill and Alex to step up against Kelseyville and they did.”
Another big match, according to Cox, was Coleman”s victory over Segura. Coleman moved up a weight class and the two wrestlers were locked in a tight battle before Coleman won by pin.
“He had a great match with Adryan Segura,” Cox said. “We worked all week to get him ready to wrestle Adryan.”
“We just need to put it behind us and get ready for our next match,” Brown said of the loss to Upper Lake.
Kelseyville shut out Point Arena 81-0. Five weight divisions were contested and the Knights won them all, including pins by Segura, Copsey, Umprello and Hayden Turner, and a decision by Cristian Ponce.
Upper Lake beat Point Arena 63-12. Of the six contested weight classes, Upper Lake won four ? Nick Mai by pin at 140 pounds, Beecher by 14-9 decision at 147 pounds, Luke Mai by 15-5 decision at 154 pounds, and Robinson by pin at 184 pounds.
The seniors on Upper Lake”s roster have never lost a dual in their three-plus years of wrestling, according to Cox.
“I think we”ve won 32 (duals) in a row,” Cox said.
Upper Lake will send a handful of wrestlers to the Foothill Tournament on Saturday in Sacramento. The rest of the team will head north to compete in the Eureka Tournament. The Cougars return to CMC action on Wednesday in Willits. Kelseyville hosts Fort Bragg and St. Helena on Wednesday.
