NEWARK — The Upper Lake Cougars accomplished one goal and just missed another Saturday during the final day of the North Coast Section Wrestling Championships at Newark Memorial High School in Newark.
While Lake County”s top wrestling program did become the highest-placing Coastal Mountain Conference team in the history of sectional competition, the Cougars — and Lake County — won”t be sending anyone to the CIF State Championships this weekend in Bakersfield. Two Upper Lake wrestlers — Ward Beecher at 132 pounds and Bruce Tucker at 152 pounds — just missed with fifth-place finishes, part of a multi-medal day for the Cougars, who landed four wrestlers in the top eight of their respective divisions.
Other Cougar medalists were Joey Valdez, who was sixth at 220 pounds, and Bradley Brackett, eighth at 160 pounds.
Lake County”s final medalist was Lower Lake”s Brandon Painchaud, who followed up a 3-0 Friday with a tough 0-3 Saturday to finish sixth at 132 pounds.
“That”s not too bad,” Upper Lake High School assistant coach Ron Campos said of a 2011-12 season that included a fourth straight CMC title, a fourth straight NCS Team Dual title, and four section medals. “I asked them to give me everything they had and they did. I couldn”t ask for more.”
Only the top four wrestlers in each of 14 weight divisions move on to the state tournament. Upper Lake had three chances and Lower Lake one to get a wrestler into the third-place match on Saturday, which would have guaranteed a state berth, but juniors Beecher and Valdez and seniors Tucker and Painchaud fell short by a single win.
Beecher came the closest, falling 8-7 to Dominic Cesena of Washington High School of Fremont while Painchaud dropped a 9-3 decision to No. 2 seed Major Stelly of Dublin. That set up a Beecher-Painchaud battle for fifth place and Beecher prevailed 9-4, winning for the second time in three chances against Painchaud this season.
Tucker also won his fifth-place match with a 2-1 victory over Kevin Milner of Liberty. Valdez lost by second-round fall to Shawn Benavente of California School for the Deaf in the fifth-place match at 220 pounds.
Though Beecher, Tucker and Valdez knew they wouldn”t be going to the state tournament prior to their final match, Campos said plenty remained on the line for Upper Lake as a team.
“We wanted to finish better than ninth (in the team standings) because no one else from our league had ever done that,” said Campos, who should know. He coached Kelseyville to a ninth-place finish at the 1996 sections while Willits also finished ninth four years earlier.
“They were all disappointed because they weren”t going to state but I got them all together and took them to dinner (before their fifth-place matches),” Campos said. “It”s hard to go out and stay focused when you know you”re not going to state, but I told ”em just to do it for pride. And they did.”
Beecher”s win over Painchaud and Tucker”s victory over Milner, who had beaten teammate Brackett earlier this season at 160 pounds, enabled the Cougars to finish tied for eighth with Castro Valley out of 89 teams.
“I told Ward before his match with Painchaud, ”I know you can do it,” and he really took it to him,” Campos said.
“Beecher came out and wrestled his match,” Lower Lake coach Ed Fuchs said. “Those two guys have gone back and forth this year, but Beecher wrestled the better match.”
Painchaud, the highest seed (No. 4) among county wrestlers going into the tournament, won all three of his matches on Friday to gain the semifinals against No. 1 seed (and eventual champion) Jon Jay Chavez of De La Salle, which easily won the team title with 318 points to runner-up College Park”s 188.
Painchaud lost a 10-2 major decision, the hardest match of the entire tournament for Chavez — he went 5-0 with two pins and two technical falls, including a 17-1 rout of Jacob Thompson-Zanarin of Liberty in the championship match.
In his next match, Painchaud had the misfortune of running into No. 2 seed Stelly, who had been upset in the quarterfinals on Friday. After the loss to Stelly came Beecher, who finished off Painchaud”s 0-3 day.
“I was a little upset and sad,” Fuchs said of Lower Lake”s overall day on Saturday, which included five matches – all losses. “I had to take a step back outside the box and look in to see how well we had done this season. And we did do well.”
Lower Lake had three wrestlers advance to Saturday. Besides Painchaud in the winner”s bracket, there was Dominick Dingess at 138 pounds and Thomas Cross at 170 pounds in the consolation bracket. Dingess and Cross each needed wins to guarantee themselves no worse than an eighth-place finish and a medal of some sort, but both loss. Dingess drew No. 8 seed Matt McCoy of Clayton Valley and was tied 2-2 going into the third round.
McCoy scored a reversal with 30 seconds left to go up 4-2 and then pinned Dingess with 17 seconds remaining.
Cross lost to fellow CMC competitor Thomas Bender of Willits 6-2. Bender went on to finish eighth, one of two medals for the Wolverines on the day. The other went to heavyweight Quintton Bowlds, who came in fifth.
“Bender had a 3-2 lead with 30 seconds left. Thomas made a mistake and ended up losing (6-3),” Fuchs said. “At NCS you can”t make a mistake,” Fuchs added.
The good news for Lower Lake and Fuchs is that both Dingess and Cross return next season and this year”s experience at sections should pay off down the road, according to Fuchs.
“All my kids battled hard and they did great,” Fuchs said. “I look for my juniors to do even better next year.”
Losing seniors is never easy and while Fuchs won”t have Painchaud back next season, the Upper Lake Cougars are losing their fair share of big names as well – Tucker, Brackett, Robert Simondi and Nick Davison among them. Tucker also won a medal last year at sections, placing eighth at 140 pounds.
“I”ve known these kids for six years and you get so close to them,” Campos said. “I couldn”t be any prouder of them.”
Upper Lake also has several big names returning, including Beecher, Valdez, Travis Coleman, Tony Lopez, Zeke Mendoza, Jon Karlsson and Alex Kranich.
“They”re already looking forward to next year,” Campos said. “I can”t wait.”
Asked to compare this year”s Upper Lake team to his 1996 Kelseyville team that had two North Coast Section runners-up — Dwayne Ford and Rene Vega — Campos said the current-day Cougars are right there.
“I”ve had great individual wrestlers and great teams, but not a whole team package like this year,” he said. “They are as good as any team I”ve ever coached.”
“I”m extremely happy for the Upper Lake program,” Fuchs said. “To finish eighth, that”s amazing.”
Kelseyville and Clear Lake also had wrestlers gunning for a medal on Saturday but all three — Kelseyville”s Jeffrey Ponce at 106 pounds and Clear Lake”s Ryan Blyleven at 120 pounds and Clear Lake”s Shawn Larsen at 195 pounds– lost in their first match of the day and were eliminated.
Ponce”s 8-2 loss to Paolo Yap was a rematch of their match two weeks earlier at the NCS Team Duals won 10-3 by Yap.
“That kid is good and you have to have a perfect game if you”re going to beat him,” Brown said.
“My seniors had a good season and a good finish. They have nothing to hang their heads about,” Brown added. “All my juniors and sophomores are motivated and ready to go to camp. They”re looking forward to next year.”
Following Ponce”s loss, Brown took all his sectional wrestlers to Fishereman”s Wharf in San Francisco for plenty of fun and food – on his dime.
“They deserved it,” he said.
