On February 28th, Terra Nova's boy wrestlers competed in the Central Coast Section tournament at Independence High School. The Tiger contingent was smaller than anticipated. After losing two 2nd Team- All-League wrestlers to challenge matches, Justin Pesino – 113lbs came down with the flu and was not able to attend either, but the remaining members of the team who qualified to compete both earned medals.
Senior, David Melton, competing at 195 pounds, had missed most of this season due to multiple injuries he sustained at a tournament in early January. Due to his high CCS rank, Melton had a first round bye. In his second round, he defeated Felix Aberouette of Serra 12-6. By the luck of the draw, Melton's next opponent was the number 2 seed of the tournament, Chandler Ramirez of Archbishop Mitty, and Melton lost that round 10-4. Ramirez eventually took first place at the tournament.
Once in the consolation bracket, Melton defeated Julian Bermudez of Riordan 10-6 and then Lai Saecho of Overfelt 4-3 to advance to the semi-finals of the consolation bracket. Melton lost that round to Noe Garcia of Gilroy 4-1, which put him in the round to contest for 5th place. Melton's opponent was too injured to compete, and Melton accepted his forfeit.
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At 120 pounds, senior Patrick Palomata began the tournament with 9-0 victory over Half Moon Bay's Emilio Bautista. He pinned his second round opponent, Juan Gutierrez of San Benito by pin at 1:30, and in the next round, he pinned Victor Daza of Gilroy at 1:46 to advance to the semi-final match in the championship bracket where he pinned Seth Goyal of Palo Alto. Palomata wrestled in the championship final of CCS against Carlos Anaya of North Monterey. Palomata finished in 2nd place to advance to the State Championship.
Palomata's pins have been deadly all season. His signature move is called a spladle – which is nickname for a split leg cradle. This move is almost impossible to defeat or escape and is so epic it has its own fan page on facebook. It's difficult to explain this move, but basically, Patrick gets one of his opponent's legs with his legs and the other with his upper body and he rolls his defenseless -and usually unsuspecting- opponent's butt over his head. As you might imagine, this doesn't feel very good. Many referees are not accustomed to seeing this move, and as happened at PAL finals, Patrick's opponent spent the last 10 seconds of the match pinned in a ball of crushing pain that the referee didn't see as a pin. Patrick won most of his matches by pin this season, and he won the Most Pins of the Season award on the Terra Nova team as well as MVP.
