Forfeits Cost Tigers in Dual Meet against El Camino

Terra Nova’s wrestlers had their first home dual meet of the season against El Camino High School Thursday, January 14. The Colts defeated the Tiger Varsity with a team score of 39 to 36.

Although Terra Nova lost the meet, the point differential of only 3 is nothing short of amazing. With virtually no returning JV wrestlers from last season and a scant handful of returning varsity wrestlers, Terra Nova’s young team is learning how to wrestle from scratch this year under the capable hand of a new Head Coach, Alek Butler, who teaches history on the TNHS staff. Mr. Butler is a former All-American in Freestyle wrestling and wrestled for Division II San Francisco State on the their starting line up for 2 years. Felipe Flores, Jr., a Terra Nova wrestling alumnus who wrestled at Skyline and San Francisco State until forced off the mat by injury, is serving as assistant coach. Brett Crowley rounds out the boys’ coaching staff.

Terra Nova’s veterans performed well, as expected. The Tigers’ only senior, Brian Alvarez, 132lbs, beat El Camino’s Tyler Mercado 5-3. Junior, Michael Pitts, CCS ranked #12 at 138 lbs but wrestling at 145lbs, pinned the Colts’ Misael Turcios at 2:37, and returning varsity sophomore, Jared Abellera, who has a CCS honorable mention at 145lbs, wrestled at 138 lbs, pinning El Camino’s Noah Pedraza at 5:16.

Some of the most exciting performances of the evening were turned in by underclassmen with mere weeks of wrestling experience under their belts. At 106 lbs, Gino Burton pinned the Colts’ Trinity Diokno at 36 seconds. Trinity is the little sister of Christian Diokno who was one of the top wrestlers in CCS. At 120lbs, the Tigers’ Adam Louie was able to keep Noel Angeles down for the entire 2nd period to come away with a 5-4 victory. TN’s Jacob Valdez lost a hard fought match to Paolo Maralit 5-9. At 152 lbs, Sam Nelson-Andrews faced Roman Reich, CCS rank 7. Sam put up a great fight, earning escape points against Reich who also competes in jiu jitsu, but Reich pinned him in the final seconds of the 2nd round. At 170lbs, Sepronio Ruiz was beating El Camino’s Omar Valdez 11-6 when Valdez took advantage of a bad angle from Ruiz, reversed Ruiz, and pinned him with seconds to go in the 3rd round. Another first year wrestler, Jomari Dionasio lost to the Colts’ Jerell Pelesauma at 220 by pin in the first round. Edward Ruiz, 113, and Maxwell Blank, 182, each took forfeits for Terra Nova.

El Camino won only 4 contested matches and 3 by forfeit while Terra Nova won 5 contested matches and only 2 by forfeit. In wrestling, a forfeit is worth 6 points, which is equal to winning by pin. Winning by decision can be worth 3 or 4 points depending on the point spread. Holes in your roster can cost you dual meets, and that is precisely what happened to the Tigers Thursday night.

The JV tied with El Camino 18-18, earning points through forfeits. Terra Nova’s Ryan Schwarzer, Patrick Doss, and Adrian Bradley wrestled aggressively and fearlessly, but all lost by pin. Every one of them took shots and fought hard on bottom. In girls’ competition, the Tigers’ Vicky Borrego, CCS rank 2 at 106, pinned Natalie Vasquez at 1:05 and Terra Nova senior, Teagan Allen, 116lbs, pinned the Colts’ Sidney Brooks at 3:42.

Terra Nova’s next home dual meet is Thursday night at 6PM in The Jungle against Mills High School, which has just returned to the Bay Division of the PAL.