But Wilcox has stepped things up this year to rank among the contenders. And Downs was concerned about those Chargers when his Wildcats hosted the team from Santa Clara last week.

As it turns out, he had nothing to worry about.

Los Gatos rolled to a lopsided 50-12 victory to push their record to 2-1 in the division, keeping them alive in the league title chase.

"I was really hoping that the kids would be up enough," admitted Downs. "This was a match we thought we could lose."

"But we wrestled about as good as we can wrestle," he added. "It was exciting to see some of the guys step up."

Two wrestlers who really stepped up were seniors Bobby Pease and Brian Miguel, who nailed impressive victories for the Wildcats.

Pease went up against Wilcox standout Justin Carscadon at 145 pounds in a rematch of their championship bout at the Cupertino Memorial Tournament on Jan. 11. Pease won that one in overtime.

The two met again last Wednesday night, and this time Pease beat the defending Central Coast Section champion with a convincing
5-0 decision win.

A match earlier, Miguel had beaten his Wilcox opponent 3-0, and "that was a big win," said Downs.

It was actually one of many big wins for the Wildcats.

Matt Miguel pinned in 59 seconds in the second round at 119 pounds, Eric Chen pinned with 46 seconds left in the second round at 171 and Cameron Fee pinned 48 seconds into the second round at 189.

The quickest pin of the night for the Cats came at 215 pounds, where Ivan Batinich won by fall in just 54 seconds.

Adam Morganthaler at 130 and Matthew Nudelman at 135 put together back-to-back technical falls for the Wildcats.

Holden Groves nailed a 10-3 win at 125 pounds, Mike Ross won 8-4 at 152 and Jeff Oleson won 6-2 at 160.

Sophomore Dylan Gavin lost a tough 14-11 decision at 103 pounds.

The Wildcats face a dual match bye this week but will compete in the California Invitational Tournament in Morro Bay on Jan. 24­25.

The Los Gatos junior varsity team will take part in the Mustang Duals in Danville on Saturday. The Wildcats are coming off a championship showing at the Los Gatos Lions Wildcat Invitational last weekend, a title that came just a week after winning the Cupertino Memorial Tournament.

The Cats, who all but wrapped up their sixth straight league championship with a 77-0 win over Wilcox last week, completed a near-perfect week by rolling up 268 points at the Wildcat Invitational to finish 60 points ahead of second-place Gilroy. Monterey was third, with Westmont fourth and defending champion Silver Creek fifth.

"This was a pretty impressive performance by the kids," said Downs. "It was amazing."

Los Gatos took 23 wrestlers to the tournament and 19 won medals—six of them taking individual titles.

Championships were won by Jake Schonig at 100 pounds, Jordan France at 121, Gary Wozniak at 137, Jeff Wysuph at 154, Chen at 173 and Liam Smith at 191.

The title was the fourth of the year for Wozniak, who boasts a 26-2 season record and has won his last 23 matches.

Wysuph is 26-6 for the year with three titles and a second, and Gavin is 22-5 with two firsts and two seconds. Gavin was second at 105 pounds on Saturday.

Joining the list of second-place finishers for the Wildcats were Adam Nudelman at 114, David Bitter at 142 and Mario Bordas at 154.

Placing third for the Cats were James Alva at 114 and Carlos Alonso at 147; adding fourths were Nick Gaffney at 162 and Adam Tucker at 173; claiming fifths were Collin Sanders at 142 and Kevin Gallagher at 173; and placing sixth were Bashir Olanglan at 132, Mike Wysuph at 174 and Devin Lopez at 277.

"This is the best JV team we've ever had," said Downs. "Winning at Cupertino was huge, because that was a JV tournament. And this was a big one."

There were more than 300 wrestlers and 25 teams competing in the frosh-soph tournament at Los Gatos on Saturday.