During the Southern California Team Duel Championships, Cerritos’ wrestling team won three of its four matches.

The first match they played was against East Los Angeles College were the team won by a whopping 51-0.

Sophomore Jesse Gomez, who has won all of his matches, said “We shut them out […] the team just went out there and wrestled against East Los Angeles.”

During the match with East Los Angeles College sophomore Elijah Wilson came up with the fastest pin of the day coming in a 32 seconds since the match first started.

The team’s other victories came from Santa Ana College with the final score being 29-18, and Cuesta College with the final score being 31-13.

Although the wrestling team did really good it one loss to Palomar College, with the final score being 18-24, cost them the chance to play for the Championship at the Southern California Team Duel.

Gomez, even though he had won his match against Palomar, decided to look at this loss as a positive thing, “It’s better to lose now than to lose at a state championship.”

Oscar Martinez, who did not wrestle at the Bakersfield Duel Tournament because of weight, wrestled here and won all his matches at the Southern California Duel.

Martinez described this loss as a tough one, “It’s tough to know that we lost to a team we already beat but we lost some matches were we won before.”

Do you think they came with a vengeance?

“They came with a little chip on their shoulder.” said Martinez.

Head coach Don Garriott said, “We lost three matches that day and with the team being young and inconsistent we could improve, some of the younger guys need to do more of the extra stuff like lifting weights on their own.”

Now the team looks forward to facing Rio Hondo College on Wednesday, Oct. 21.

Gomez is also looking forward to Wednesday’s match, “I’m very excited every match is important and it’s a tough team to wrestle and we’re ready.”

Martinez also stated, “I’m excited, get to show the things I’m working on and show everybody that we could get a state championship.”

As practice gets started coach Garriott said about Rio Hondo, “We match up well with them, we’re a little banged up but we’ll be fine.”