UNION CITY — Three Lake County boys are undefeated through the first day of the North Coast Section Wrestling Championships at James Logan High School in Union City and four others are still alive in the consolation bracket of the two-day tournament, which concludes Saturday.
The top three placers in each of 14 weight classes advance to the CIF State Championships Feb. 28-29 in Bakersfield while the top eight receive coveted section medals.
Reaching the championship quarterfinals on Friday were Middletown’s only two entries in the tournament, 113-pounder Xander Romero, the No. 4 seed, and unseeded Anthony Nudi at 160 pounds, both 2-0 on the day, and Lower Lake’s unseeded 126-pounder Tristan Day, who won all three of his matches.
Twenty-seven Lake County wrestlers began the day with high hopes but only seven were left by day’s end.
“Everyone wants to go to day two, that’s what makes it awesome,” Lower Lake head coach Ed Fuchs said of the opening rounds of the sectionals, which are a real meatgrinder.
Fuchs took 12 wrestlers to the sectionals and was hoping to get at least half of those through to day two.
“My goal was six guys for the second day, but I had some guys go out that I didn’t expect,” he said of Coastal Mountain Conference champions Pedro Garrido at 134 pounds and Gilberto Orozco at 145 pounds. Garrido went 1-2 on the day while Orozco was 0-2. He hurt his shoulder in his first match, a loss to Karl Complon of Pittsburg by injury default, but came back after a lengthy break between matches to face Joe McGuire of Casa Grande. Orozco was holding his own before he aggravated the injury and had to injury default, ending his day.
“He (Garrido) gets to come back next year, he’s only a junior,” Fuchs said. “It was a bad break for Orozco. He’s a senior and you always want the best for them.”
It was a particularly tough day for CMC runner-up Quentin Vilmenay at 113 pounds as the freshman dropped a 8-6 overtime decision to Windsor’s Domonik Mertins in the opening round, then a 10-8 decision to Julian Aung of Clayton Valley in the consolation bracket.
“It could be just nerves as a freshman,” Fuchs said.
Romero, Nudi and Day can advance to the semifinals with a victory in their first match Saturday. A loss drops them into the consolation bracket, where they can still place as high as third and qualify for the state championships.
Middletown head coach Brian Hunt watched Romero and Nudi go a combined 4-0.
“We were done early and usually when you say that at NCS, it’s not a good thing,” Hunt said. “We were first back to the hotel, there was plenty of parking.”
Romero, the Coastal Mountain Conference champion, beat Matthew Deinitchenko of Dougherty Valley 7-2 in a first-round match and Cooper Cohee of Justin-Siena 8-0 in a second-round match. He draws No. 5 seed Jaden Namayan of Granada in the quarterfinals.
Nudi, the CMC runner-up, scored a 7-2 decision over No. 9 seed Sunish Patel of Berkeley in the opening round. He came back with a third-round pin of No. 8 seed Kurtis Turner of Del Norte in the second round. He’ll wrestle No. 1 seed Trent Silva of Windsor in the quarterfinals.
“He picked off two seeded wrestlers, it was quite the day for him,” Hunt said of Nudi. “He worked the Del Norte kid (Turner) pretty good before pinning him.”
Day, the CMC runner-up, pinned Miles Coble of Dougherty Valley in the first round of an outbracket match, and the senior followed that up by beating Tyrell Clausen of Arcata by 16-3 major decision in the first round and No. 3 seed Albert Truong of Freedom by 5-2 decision in the second round. Day draws No. 6 seed Andrew Ji of Redwood in the quarterfinals.
“Putting him in that outbracket kind of benefitted him,” Fuchs said of Day, who has had worse draws in past years when he’s been the CMC champion.
Day fell behind Truong 2-0 in their second-round match but was pretty much in control the rest of the way. He took a 3-2 lead into the third round and scored another reversal with 30 seconds left in the match to go up 5-2.
“That was very emotional for him,” Fuchs said of a win over a top seed. “That was awesome for him to go out there and do that.”
Fuchs has had at least one NCS medalist each of the past 10 years and he’s hoping Day, Bryan Gudino and Mario Cuellar can help him keep that streak going.
“With those three guys, my odds are pretty good,” Fuchs said.
Hunt likes his chances of picking up some section hardware, too.
“It’s been a long time since we’ve had two sectional medalists in the same year,” Hunt said when asked about Romero’s and Nudi’s chances of both coming home with medals. “They had a great day today and I’m looking forward to some big stuff tomorrow.”
Consolation bracket
Lake County wrestlers with one loss in the double-elimination competition are Lower Lake’s Gudino at 106 pounds and Cuellar at 152 pounds, Clear Lake’s Elijah Alvarez at 138 pounds, and Upper Lake’s Bradley Sneathen at 220 pounds. Gudino, Cuellar and Sneathen all won their divisions last weekend at the CMC Championships while Alvarez placed third.
Gudino pinned Kai Hoffman of Justin-Siena in his first match before losing to another former Lower Lake youth wrestler, No. 4 seed Jonathan Fredrickson of Windsor, by 16-0 technical fall in the second round. Gudino came back in the consolation bracket to pin Preston Trager of California in the third round.
Cuellar also won his first match, scoring a 12-0 major decision over Marcus Avalos of Ukiah in the first round, before dropping a 2-0 overtime decision to Owen Gallegos of Newark Memorial in one of the day’s most exciting matches.
Alvarez, the only one of seven Clear Lake wrestlers to reach day two of the sectionals, pinned Zander Walker of Las Lomas in the first round of their outbracket match. Alvarez then lost by first-round pin to Ryan Naugle of Casa Grande in a first-round match. In the consolation bracket, Alvarez bounced back with a third-round pin of Inder Singh of Eureka and a win by injury default over Itay Udler of California.
The sophomore Sneathen, the No. 4 seed, opened his day with a second-round pin of Foothill’s Jack Madden before losing to Tilheim Keaton of Pinole by second-round pin. He came back with a first-round pin over John Baily of Eureka in the consolation bracket.
Team scoring
CMC team runner-up Willits did the best of any of the CMC schools on day one, earning 54 points for 16th place in the standings out of 94 teams. Lower Lake was next among CMC schools at 31st place with 37 points. De La Salle of Concord (121), Granada (91) and James Logan (88) were the top three schools after day one. Ukiah was seventh with 74 points and Casa Grande (Petaluma) was tied for eighth with 71 points.
