As the Falcon’s wrestling team constantly take in championships this semester, the team looks toward the future and has set its eyes on the State Championship.
Over the past weekend, the wrestling team took first place in the Southern California Team Duel at Palomar College, facing the teams of Bakersfield, Santa Ana and Mt.San Antonio.
Of the many team victories, one of them was from 174-pound freshmen Bryant Vasquez. Going in the last few matches against Mt. San Antonia, he came out victorious.
Vasquez said about his victory, “It was real good. I was actually wrestling the number one guy in the state, so I was the underdog in that one. […] I had to get the win.”
With tournaments coming up against Santa Ana and Rio Hondo, Vasquez is ready to get more victories under his badge.
“I feel good about it, we’ve beat both of them already, we’ve beat them pretty easily. So, it should be a pretty good turn out,” he said.
Out of the three colleges present at the tournament, Mt. San Antonio, was the toughest according to the wrestlers. They were tied toward the end of the duel and it was up to the to the 133-pound match for the Falcons to win it without going to a technicality.
Sophomore Anthony Vargas was the 133-pond wrestler that broke the tie.
Vargas said, “Honestly, all of us that won played a part in winning the duel. Even if I didn’t win we still would have won on criteria.
“If I would’ve lost it would’ve been 18-18, and we still would have won because they’d go more into depth with each match and who got the bonus point and all that, so we still would’ve won. It was still a pretty intense match,” he said.
Looking forward to Wednesday, October 19, Vargas is ready for Santa Ana.
“This Wednesday should be good, it does get a little heavy on my weight, but other than making weight it should be a smooth sail. They’re pretty tough, but everything will be good,” Vargas said.
Head Coach Don Garriott has time and time again said that what he looks forward to and prepares for is the State Championship. He didn’t shy away his confidence when he said, “This is the dual meet championship, it isn’t the end of the season state.
“So, the champion from the south wrestles the champion from the north in the dual state championships. So, this means where going [the state] for sure. We wrestled Fresno City and they won the north. So, we’ll see them some time mid-November.”
He also continued by speaking on Santa Ana, “Santa Ana is always a tough team. It’s kind of a low week for us because we don’t have a tournament this weekend, so we’re going to give them some rest[…] have them heal up a bit.”
Garriott expressed that he will have a different set up on who will wrestle and who doesn’t in Santa Ana, even though the team has beaten them before. He wants to allow his team to have a break and have them work on each individual’s weight.
“We’ll have a little bit of a different line up this time, we’re going to let some guys have a break from cutting weight, so our line up will be different. It may be a different sort of outcome, we’ll see,” he concluded.
