ALBANY — The Upper Lake and Middletown girls wrestling teams had a pretty good first day at the North Coast Section Girls Wrestling Championships Friday at Albany High School.
The tournament, which runs through Saturday, sends the top four finishers in each weight class to the CIF State Championships Feb. 24-26 at Bakersfield. The top eight receive medals.
Middletown entered 10 wrestlers and five made the cut into Saturday’s final rounds, including 143-pounder Mariah Ketchum, who drew a first-round bye before pinning No. 8 seed Adenne Schaad of Del Norte High School in the second round. She’ll face Leilani Frazer of Vintage in Saturday’s quarterfinals.
Upper Lake sent only four wrestlers to the sectionals and three are in the quarterfinals. Bella Fernandez, the No. 2 seed at 116 pounds, pinned her only two opponents Friday while 121-pounder Tatum Salas won her two matches by technical fall and pin. Maddy Young, a 126-pounder, received a first-round bye before pinning her second-round opponent.
A fifth quarterfinalist is Middletown’s Krystal Ocken, who didn’t wrestle a single match Friday in the 160-pound division. She received a first-round bye in the small weight class (just 11 wrestlers) and faces Melody Tootian of San Ramon Valley in Saturday’s quarterfinals.
Still alive in the consolation bracket, each with one loss, are three Middletown wrestlers — Cat Barriga at 101 pounds, Nicole Pyzer at 106 pounds and Hannah Gotz at 131 pounds. They can still finish as high as third.
Upper Lake
“They did an outstanding job,” Upper Lake co-head coach Eddie Peregrina said of his wrestlers. “It took us the first match to warm up, they were a little nervous.”
Even Fernandez came out a bit flat, not that you would have known it from her two pins. The sophomore needed only 110 seconds to pin Mamata Elangovan of American Canyon in the first round and considerably less, just 62, to pin Rebecca Garcia of Clayton Valley School in the second round.
“She was amazing,” Peregrina said.
Salas worked over Mia Morales of American Canyon by 15-0 technical fall in the opening round and came back later in the day with a second-round pin of Alissa Roach of Del Norte. She draws Camille Shaver of Eureka in the quarterfinals.
After drawing a bye in the first round, Young pinned Anahi Marin Vasquez just 1:36 into their second-round match. Young faces Ruby Duncan of Pleasanton in the quarterfinals.
Despite their small squad size, the Cougars amassed 21.5 points, leaving them in 15th place in the team standings, a half point behind three other teams, including Middletown, with 22.
“That’s pretty good,” Peregrina said.
Middletown
While Ketchum and Ocken open Saturday in the quarterfinals, Barriga, Pyzer and Gotz will continue on in the consolation bracket.
Barriga lost in the first round but came back with a 30-second pin in her first consolation match followed by a 3-2 decision over Dakota Goyert of Acalanes.
Pyzer lost a 7-1 decision in her first match. After a bye in her first match in the consolation bracket, the junior notched a second-round pin against Clear Lake’s Emily Gersalia.
Gotz was pinned in her first match. After a bye in the consolation bracket, she pinned Alyssa Scallin of College Park early in the second round.
Middletown and Upper Lake finished one-two a week ago in the team standings at the Coastal Mountain Conference Championships at Middletown High School, the first dedicated girls championships in CMC history.
Clear Lake
Clear Lake’s Addyson Munoz at 137 pounds lost her first match Friday to fall into the consolation bracket. She can still finish as high as third place Saturday if she goes undefeated on the final day.
