Los Gatos and Fremont, second and third behind Gilroy in the CCS team rankings, had been grappling last week to be second to none in the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League.

Wildcats and Firebirds had been exchanging takedowns and reversals, escapes and near falls on the Fremont mat, striving to maneuver themselves into better seeding positions for the upcoming SCVAL meet at Los Altos.

Now, in the wake of Los Gatos' 46-25 capture of the De Anza Division dual match crown, both head coaches sounded as if they were gearing up for Valentine's Day, not league finals.

A lot of love was flowing from the lips of Los Gatos' Scott Downs and Fremont's Paul Escalera, admirers of each other's teams.

"Whenever we wrestle Los Gatos, we know it will be a knock-down, drag-out fight," Escalera said. "Whenever a Fremont guy and a Los Gatos guy meet, you know it will be a nails match."

"They are respectful, well-coached and well-conditioned," Downs praised the Firebirds. "They don't have a full line-up, but they are very good—ranked 25th in the state."

The Firebirds had been good enough to easily win four previous league duals, despite having nobody to fill the 152-, 160- and 171-pound positions. Against Los Gatos, the 18 points lost in forfeited bouts were too much to overcome.

"We felt we would win the dual, because of the forfeits," Downs explained. "The goal was to outwrestle them."

Although the Wildcats "didn't do as well as we wanted," Downs said, they did accomplish their goal, outscoring the Firebirds 28-25, excluding the three forfeits.

Twelve points went on the scoreboard right away, after a blind draw determined the contest would begin with the 160 class. Mike Wysuph picked up the forfeit win for the Wildcats, and Eric Chen did likewise at 171.

The first wrestled bout featured Gatos senior Ivan Batinich, the top-ranked 191-pounder in CCS. Escalera had hoped outstanding sophomore Tommy Staats could score an upset, but Batinich prevailed with a 12-4 major decision and four team points for the Cats.

It was the first of "four swing matches that needed to go our way" in order for Fremont to have a good chance to win the bout, Escalera said. "Instead, three went their way."

The one that did go Fremont's way was no surprise, but came after a surprise line-up maneuver by Escalera. He moved senior leader Ernesto Ancona, a 215-pounder ranked third in CCS and eighth in the state, up to heavyweight to battle Los Gatos junior Devin Lopez. The strategy worked as Ancona pinned in 52 seconds.

"He figured he could get that pin and that he would take his chances with his JV guy at 215," Downs said, understanding the plan of his counterpart. "And it almost worked."

Fremont junior Austin Hill led Nolan Verga 7-6 after two rounds of the 215 matchup, but the Wildcat senior pinned Hill 1:20 into the third period. Verga now has two pins in two career varsity matches.

"He has a heart as big as this gym," Downs exclaimed about Verga, who has been sidelined by injury for much of the past two seasons.

Ancona's pin put Fremont on the scoreboard and trimmed its deficit to 22-6. But in the final "swing match" at 103, Fremont freshman Borislav Novachkov was unable to defeat Gatos' Jake Schonig. The junior, ranked seventh in the section, scored a 7-1 decision win.

After Firebird sophomore Filip Novachkov (112) and Wildcat junior Jordan France (119) nailed pins, Los Gatos led 31-12. Then the teams split the final six matches.

For Fremont, senior Joel Tran (125) took a 3-0 decision over senior Nolan Nguyen, sophomore Kurtis Ogasawara (135) won a major decision and Greg Crane (140) won by fall with two seconds left in the first round.

For Los Gatos, junior David Bitter pinned at 145 and senior Bobby Pease won by forfeit at 160, after senior 130-pounder Matt Miguel blanked second-ranked Joe Seo 4-0 in what Downs called "the upset of the night."

Miguel, ranked just one notch below Seo, scored a two-point near fall at the close of the second period and a reversal in the third.

Both teams conclude the De Anza Division schedule this week before moving on to league finals. Los Gatos, now 5-0, travels to Saratoga, while Fremont (4-1) hosts Palo Alto.

Los Gatos will be gunning for its sixth straight league tournament championship on Feb. 14 at Los Altos.

"We've dominated this tournament over the last few years," said Downs. "Our goal is to quality 14 [wrestlers for CCS] again."

A day earlier, the Los Gatos junior varsity will gun for a title in the league tourney. The young Cats finished 5-0 in the league dual match season and has won six tournaments this year.

"This is the best JV team we've ever had here, and we said that last year," said Downs. "They're like road warriors. We haven't had a close match in league all year. No question, this the best team we've ever had."

The Cats won their sixth tournament championship last weekend, finishing first at the Wilcox Frosh-Soph Invitational ahead of Monta Vista and host Wilcox.

James Alva (130), Collin Sanders (137) and Carlos Alonso (160) were individual champions for Los Gatos and Jeff Wysuph (152), Naveed Bogheri (103) and Adam Nudelman (125) each finished second. Alan Howard (114) added a third and Danny Dill (119) was fourth.

In addition to the Wilcox, the Los Gatos JVs have won the Wildcat Invitational, the Ruppel Second-Man, the Harbor, the Willow Glen duals and the Leigh Stampede duals. The Cats were second to Bellarmine at the Silicon Valley Classic and they were sixth in the Briggs varsity tournament.