The men’s wrestling team suffered a rough loss against a tough Mt. Sac team that they hosted on Oct. 18.
Although the last time the Falcons hosted a dual and came back after trailing at first, they weren’t able to do so this time around.
The first four Cerritos wrestlers lost to their opponents and all the matches were going slow.
It seemed like the Falcons couldn’t do anything to stop the Mounties from beating them.
The 157 lb. weight class match had the crowd into the dual a bit more as freshman Noah Zuniga won by a major decision over his opponent with a score of 18-4.
Another freshman Zack Harkey wrestled hard in what was the closest match of the night at the 174 lb. weight class, going back and forth with the Mt. Sac wrestler.
The match went all three periods and came down to who was going to get the last takedown and unfortunately, it wasn’t Harkey who was able to get it.
“I need to use my hands and my fakes better,” said Harkey, “I need to be using wrist pulls and head snaps to get to my shots and open them up more. I can’t just be out there shooting blind.”
Harkey voiced the sucky feeling of not being able to win the match but he made sure to express that he wasn’t going to let this bother him as he said, “You live, you learn.”
The Cerritos lineup had seven freshmen and only three sophomore wrestlers in it, and head coach Donny Garriot explained that was because the team had just come off a tournament over the weekend and some of the older guys got a bit banged up.
“We knew it was going to be rough to beat them (Mt. Sac) anyway,” said Garriot, “I mean they’re the number one team in the state so we kinda sat those guys tonight and let our younger guys have a match.”
He wanted to see how the younger guys would respond to going against a team like Mt.Sac.
At the end of the night, Garriot was pleased with the way the Falcons wrestled and put up a fight.
He also explained how a majority of the team are freshmen and they are working to make improvements even though it might not seem like it on the mat just yet.
“We knew this season was going to be like this,” said Garriot, “We even told them this is a different type of team than we had last year. This is gonna be a process all season long.”
The next tournament the Falcons will wrestle at will be an all-day event at the 20th Meathead Mover Invitational at Cuesta College on Oct. 21.
They will be back home hosting the Halloween Open tournament on Oct. 28 and 29 starting at 9 a.m. both days.
