By Dick Sparrer
A trip to Stockton may not sound like much of a vacation.
But it was a trip that Los Gatos wrestlers certainly hoped to take after the Central Coast Section wrestling tournament.
Why Stockton? Because Stockton is where the CIF State wrestling championships were held on March 1-2. The top four placers in each weight at CCS were to get together with other section placers to battle for state honors in the tournament at the University of the Pacific.
And how close did Segnitz come to winning a trip to Stockton? Well, the top four advanced... and Segnitz finished fifth.
Still, it was quite a performance for the Los Gatos mat star.
Segnitz barely missed a trip to the state tournament with a fifth-place finish at 152 pounds at the CCS finals.
Segnitz, a Santa Clara Valley Athletic League champion for the Cats, had won by technical fall over Rhammese Del Rio of Piedmont Hills in the quarterfinals, but an 11-2 loss to the ultimate champ, Dana Garcia of Independence, dropped him into the fifth-place match.
The Gatos star came on strong by pinning John Parks of North Monterey County 13 seconds into the second round to clinch fifth in his weight class.
Segnitz beat Saul Cervantez of Gilroy 5-2 and whipped Herman Yee of Sacred Heart 7-1 before disposing of Del Rio.
Bob Martin, at 160 pounds, and Amir Eissa, at 189, also came through with solid efforts for Los Gatos at the CCS tourney. The two, both second at the SCVAL finals, advanced to the quarter-finals before losing tight decisions and ending up out of the places.
Martin opened with a third-round pin against Darin McFarlin of North Monterey County and he handled Morgan Flager of Aptos 12-3 before losing a 3-2 heartbreaker to Juan Sanchez of San Benito.
Eissa won by technical fall over Chris DeLaRocha of Oak Grove and crushed Vince Mosqueda of Aptos 14-2 before dropping a 4-1 nod to Jim Hughes of Lick.
Bobby Nguyen won his first match 17-10 over Evan Esquerra of South San Francisco at 130 pounds before losing 13-1 to Jason Luna of Gilroy, and Kyle Smith pinned Scott Benham of Valley Christian in 1:34 of the first round in his first match before losing by fall to Mercedes Kinner of Del Mar.
Jeff Ouellet (112), Pat Stone (125), John Justus (140) and Fred Luminoso (171) also competed at CCS for Los Gatos.
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, March 6, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved