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Los Gatos' 132-pound Adam Morgenthaler picks up Cupertino's Brett Haraguchi on his way to an 11-3 win in last week's big dual match win for the Wildcats over the Pioneers. Morgenthaler came back to place third in his weight class at the SCVAL finals on Saturday to help the Cats to the team title.
Photograph by Paul Myers
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Wildcats roll over Pioneers, SCVAL
Escobar, Pease win league championships
By Dick Sparrer
There's a sign on the ceiling of the wrestling room at Los Gatos that reads: "If you can read this sign, you are pinned."
Well, there's a chance that the current Wildcats don't even know it's there.
That's how good the Cats are this season. Not only don't the Gatos wrestlers get pinned very often, they don't lose too much either!
In what had to be the biggest week of their season, the Wildcats lost only four of 14 matches in a rousing 41-12 victory over Cupertino, then came back two days later to place a wrestler in every weight class at the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League finals.
What that means is that the Wildcats:
- won the SCVAL De Anza Division dual match crown with a 6-0 record;
- won the team championship at the league finals by running up nearly 50 points more than their nearest rival; and
- qualified 14 wrestlers--the maximum possible--for the upcoming Central Coast Section tournament.
"We have to be really excited," said Los Gatos co-head coach Scott Downs after his club's super week. "This is just a great group of kids. They have a lot of character."
Winning the dual match and league tournament titles matched only two of the season goals for Gatos this winter. The Cats will chase another when they go after the CCS title Feb. 22-23 at Independence High School. Finals begin Saturday at 6 p.m.
"We're not going there with a goal of just to finish in the top five," said Downs. "We're going there to win it."
"And we don't just have 14 kids in [the tournament]," he added. "We have 14 kids who will wrestle their hearts out."
Downs sees CCS as potentially a two-team race. Hollister has also qualified 14 wrestlers for the event. And he considers Bellarmine a top contender as well, since the Bells send 12 wrestlers to the tourney.
"The thing about CCS," said Downs, "is that anything can happen."
Los Gatos ran up 244 points to win the team title at the league meet. Cupertino (197.5) was a distant second, with Fremont (152) third.
Individual champions Bobby Pease and Richard Escobar sparked Los Gatos to the team title at the finals.
Escobar, a senior, was named the outstanding wrestler in the upper weights after winning three straight matches to take the title at 171 pounds. Escobar, now 31-4 for the year, pinned and won by technical fall before beating Cupertino's Andrew Reese 9-1 in the finals.
"He just dominated," said Downs of Escobar.
Pease, a sophomore, pinned twice and beat Fremont's Bayardo Sanchez 6-0 in the finals to win the title at 142 pounds.
"That was very enjoyable to watch," said Downs of the championship win by Pease, who is now 30-7 for the year. "He did what he had to do to win."
Mathew Nudelman, Ted Ross, Chris Smith and Evan McDonald were other league finalists for the Wildcats, and all four ended up with seconds.
Nudelman won his first two bouts before losing in the finals at 119 pounds, and Ross did the same at 135. Smith opened with two wins at 189 before losing a heartbreaker to Ben Reynolds of Cupertino in the final seconds, and McDonald was 2-1 to nail second at 215.
Posting 3-1 records to claim third-place finishes were Bryan Ceglio at 103 pounds, Adam Morgenthaler at 125 and Tyler Donnelly at 152.
Fourths went to Kevin Cho at 112, Holden Groves at 130 and Nathan Fillhardt at 277, and fifths were nailed by Brian Miguel at 145 and Jeff Olseson at 160.
Downs rates Escobar, Pease, Smith and Morgenthaler as top prospects to place at CCS and says that Nudelman "could be a dark horse." He adds that Ceglio and Groves "could be our secret weapons at CCS."
Prior to claiming the team title at the league tournament, the Wildcats had wrapped up the dual match championship with the impressive win over Cupertino on Thursday night.
"It was a surprise to all of us, [Cupertino coach Jay Lawson] and myself included," said Downs of the lopsided victory. "Their kids are well-coached and a talented group, and they came in hard. But we were just a little more aggressive."
The match started at 114 pounds and the Pioneers opened with a decision win. But the Cats answered with six straight victories.
Nudelman won 7-3 at 121 and Groves pinned at 127 pounds.
"That was huge," said Downs of the pin by Groves.
After Morgenthaler won 11-3 at 132 pounds, "we were on kind of a roll," added the coach.
Ross rolled to an 11-4 win at 137, Pease pinned at 142 and Miguel dominated his foe 9-1 at 147.
Cupertino won the next two bouts, but both by decisions.
"They were only picking up three pointers where they thought they were going to pin," said Downs. Then Gatos went on to nail three more wins in a row.
Escobar dominated Reese 10-3 at 173 and Smith pinned Reynolds at 191. McDonald followed with a pin at 217.
Despite giving up 40 pounds in the 277-pound weight class, Fillhardt lost just 7-0.
"He just does not get pinned," said Downs of Fillhardt. "He gives up all that weight and just will not stay down."
The match ended with Ceglio's convincing 6-0 victory at 105 pounds.
Los Gatos, 6-0 in the league, finished the year with a 12-2 dual match record.
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Los Gatos, California Since 1881
