PINOLE — Dominick Clark should be on Santa’s “nice” list this year after the Middletown High School 113-pounder finished first on Wednesday at the X-Mas Tournament in Pinole.
After all, Clark’s 11-0 on the season, and that’s about as good as it gets as far as jolly old St. Nick is concerned.
“Dominick had another great day and is performing well in all areas as we head into the heart of our schedule,” Middletown assistant coach Brian Hunt said.
Caleb Sternberg also had himself a day at 152 pounds as the No. 6 seed upset, in order, the Nos. 3, 2 and 4 seeds while claiming his division title, which he closed out with a first-round pin in the finals. It was his first tournament of the season.
Elijah Moreno added a second-place finish at 182 pounds.
“Elijah lost a very close finals match to finish 1-1 on the day,” Hunt said.
Added Hunt, “All three of these wrestlers performed admirably, wrestling with intensity, aggression and intelligence. I was thrilled with their performance in Pinole today.”
Girls
In a strong girls field at the Albany Tournament, freshman Krystal Ocken placed third while improving to 10-2 on the season.
“This was by far the biggest girls tournament on our schedule so far, and our girls performed well,” Hunt said.
Fifth-place finishes went to freshman Cat Barriga placed at 101 pounds and to Mariah Ketchum at 143 pounds. Barriga improved to 10-4 on the season. Nicole Pyzer came in sixth at 101 pounds, competing in her first tournament in more than two years, and Issy Barriga placed eighth at 101 pounds.
“The majority of our girls are underclassmen,” Hunt said. “This was the first large-bracket girls tournament any of them have been to at the high school level and they performed admirably. In my opinion, this was a good stepping stone as we head into the rest of our schedule, and shows promise of things to come.”
