LAKE COUNTY — Lake County has five seeded boys wrestlers in the North Coast Section Wrestling Championships that open Friday and run through Saturday at James Logan High School in Union City.
The fivesome includes a trio of Lower Lake High School standouts led by Bryan Gudino, the No. 3 seed at 106 pounds. Teammates Quentin Vilmenay and Gabriel “Gordo” Ambriz are also seeded, with Vilmenay No. 5 at 126 pounds and Ambriz No. 7 at 132 pounds.
Upper Lake 285-pounder Bradley Sneathen is the No. 4 seed and Clear Lake’s Liam Davis is No. 5 at 152 pounds.
While the top eight wrestlers in each weight class receive medals at the sectional tournament, only the top three advance to the CIF State Championships on Feb. 24-26 at Mechanics Bank Arena in Bakersfield.
Gudino, Vilmenay, Ambriz, Sneathen and Davis are all coming off weight class wins last weekend at the Coastal Mountain Conference Championships in Middletown.
There will be three rounds of championship action and three rounds of consolation action Friday. Wrestlers with fewer than two losses advance to Saturday.
Gudino’s first match is against Kenshin Lin of Dougherty Valley High School. Vilmenay takes on Matthew Brightman of Fortuna in his first match while Ambriz draws Jared Texeira of Amador Valley High School. Davis’ initial opponent is Selichi Naddy of Concord High School, and Sneathen goes up against the winner of a first-round match between Milson Contreras of Redwood High School and Antonio Martinez of Santa Rosa High School.
Gudino was unseeded at 106 pounds two years ago (there was no tournament last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic) when he won a sixth-place medal, one of three medals taken by Lower Lake wrestlers at the 2020 sectionals — Tristan Day was fourth at 126 pounds and just missed a state berth while Mario Cuellar was seventh at 152 pounds.
Middletown wrestlers also won two medals in 2020, a fifth by Xander Romero at 112 pounds and an eighth by Anthony Nudi at 160 pounds.
The last two Lake County boys to reach the state championships were senior 132-pounder Junior Fernandez of Upper Lake and senior 160-pounder Alex Garcia of Kelseyville in 2019. Both finished second at sections. Fernandez went on to win a fifth-place state medal.
