As the Cerritos Falcons wrestling team obtained the Southern California Champions over the weekend, they look towards the upcoming weekend, in which CCCAA State Championships will take place.

Due to their win, 11 wrestlers from the team will advance to CCCAA.

The 11 being:

• Norberto Buenrostro
• Richard Pocock
• Dylan Moreno
• David Van Weems
• Kevin James
• Wyatt Gerl
• Blake Vasquez
• Bryant Vasquez
• Kennith Kirk
• Isaiah Leyva
• David Zavala

These men will be competing in what is the last wrestling event of the season.

Among the 11, four had won individual championships over the weekend.

The 124-pound freshmen Norberto Buenrostro has been able to pick himself back up and win a total of four matches.

Buenrostro was nervous in upcoming days of the event. He was stressing over his weight needing to come down.

With a bruised face, he said, “Trying to get my weight down the day before, I was stressing over that. I did my best not to think about it too much. Coach told me ‘don’t worry about it, just wrestle’ and that’s what I did. I showed up and competed. I got two falls for my team, I got a major in the semi, and I won a 2-1 position over the No. 1 seat and came out on top. I battled through, never stopped wrestling. Now I [have] to carry it till next weekend and hopefully win that state title.”

Another from the 11 is the 141-pound sophomore Pocock, who was able to capture three victories and obtain an individual championship.

He felt good about the weekend. Being that this is his second season, he did better than last year.

By this time his freshmen year, he was fifth in regionals, now coming out on top with an individual title this year really shows Pocock hard over the past year. He has his teammates to thank.

“One of my weaknesses last year use to be on my feet. I used to not be good and neutral, but now I’m getting a lot better and neutral. It’s because of my teammates. We’ve been all practicing together and they’ve helped me get better on my feet,” he said.

However, he is self-aware that the season is not over and that CCCAA State is just around the corner.

He’s confident in his abilities and understands that anything can happen and said that he’ll go out and do his best and wrestle.

Another one from the 11 who won an individual championship at Southern regionals is the 157-pound sophomore Moreno.

He won two matches and obtained his individual champion by a coin toss between his teammate James for the first place position. His first by pin fall and the second by defeat.

“My teammate and I flipped a coin for who got first and second, but the other matches leading into it they were intense. We come to do what we had to do. Coach prepared us best he could for it. They were matches that we’ve gone through before throughout the season. I knew that I had to get to the finals, same thing with my teammate [James] we just had to get to the finals and make it easy, put ourselves in the best position for next week for state[…] I’m excited,” Moreno expressed.

Throughout the season, Moreno studied his film matches and picked up flaws and tried to correct them. He did his best to capitalize and correct little mistakes that he saw, and works toward getting better.

He feels confident in himself, and the team and is hopeful that they will become state champions.

Head coach Don Garriott, who is no stranger to championships and bringing them home, has been looking forward to this all year.

Every single time, when his wrestling team would do an outstanding job in past duals or past tournaments he made it clear that those wins meant very little to him simply because they weren’t Regionals or State.

What Garriott also seemed to express throughout the season was the conditioning and stamina of his men wasn’t up to par.

This time however, he believes he saw what he has been looking for.

“I felt good. We’ve talked all year about where we needed to get to and this weekend we got there. We were right there. Now, as long as we didn’t peak too early we’ll be good,” Garriot said.

One in particular wrestler that Garriott said has improved thoughout the season is 149-pound freshman Gerl.

“I’ve definitely seen some people put the daily practice [in] and come in with a goal every day. Gerl has really came in and changed some things. He’s been really close to some of the top guys and he’s slowly closed the gap on those guys and has beaten the No. 1 guy in the state[…] and has been doing a good job,” Garriott said.

CCCAA State Championship is gong to be on Friday Dec.9 and will take place in Victory Valley College.