The Cerritos Falcons wrestling team earn clinched the Southwest Conference title Wednesday, Nov. 2.
The Falcons walked out with 28-21 victory against Mt. San Antonio after they won seven out the 10 matches that took place in the Cerritos College gymnasium.
The team was off to a rough start with losing the first three matches, one of which was by default due to an injury.
The injured athlete was sophomore Anthony Vargas. He was carried out of the match due to an injury to the arm.
Head coach Don Garriott is very confident that Vargas will heal in time for regionals.
“[The injury was a dislocation], so thats a tough injury. Doctors told him about 6 weeks, but we’re going to work really hard and try to get him back for regionals,” Garriot said. “You know, wrestlers are notorious for coming back quicker with their work ethics. I had a talk with him and his trainers and thats his plan.”
He didn’t want to entertain the thought of Vargas being out for the rest of the season. He was pretty clear that wasn’t going to happen.
Moving forward in the night, freshmen Kennith Kirk came out on top with a pin against Omar Nava in the 165-pound division. The match itself lasted 1:27 minutes.
Kirk, who is also ranked No. 4 in the state, expresses he was worried about the match on a few occasions, and did what he felt that needed to be done.
“We did everything we were supposed to do. We just fell short on a couple matches, one of our guys got hurt. That cost us to give up six points, which I think we wouldn’t have to give up those six points and we would have won by a lot more if that wouldn’t have happened. I felt that I had to go get us a pin, so I did,” he said,
Another pinball victory obtained that night was done so by the freshmen David Zavala.
He was able to pin Mt. SAC wrestler, Joshua Sapien, 48 seconds into his match.
When discussing the match-up, Zavala expresses the slow start that the team had.
“I thought it was good. We started off rough, but I knew we were gonna catch up. The [last time] we wrestled [Mt.SAC] we started off slow and caught up again, so I was confident.[…] I have wrestled against [Sapien] before, I knew what to expect, so I went at it and got the pin.” Zavala said.
Another match that stood out from the 10 was from the freshmen David Van Weems. He captured a win over the Mounties’ Barnabas Yi in the 197-pound division.
There was well observed tension and aggression between the two, as both were seen doing more than just wrestling.
They were seen palm striking each other in the head and sometimes the face resulting Van Weems to have a wound re-open in his right eye.
Van Weems speaks on how he felt during the match. “This [wounded eye] actually started in the beginning. This was torn from last week and it was kind of relatively new, so when he palmed me it opened up again. And when I get hit it gets me amped.”
He then went on to give his thoughts on Anthony Vargas’ injury.
“Vargas has to heal his elbow and his wrist. I don’t really know what happened yet but it takes six to eight weeks but he wants to see if he can do it in four. Because [if not] that would be a waste of his season, he doesn’t want to go out the season like that. Vargas is ranked like top 3 in the state. It sucked when we saw it happen, we all just kept our cool and we still got to wrestle. It wasn’t over yet. It was a hell of a rough start, but we still came out the better team,” Van Weems said.
The team is hoping for Vargas to get a speedy recovery, in time for regionals.
