Varsity wrestlers back on track in the hunt for another league championship

The Tigers hope to improve to 2-1 in the WYL when they travel to Visalia on January 19 for a matchup against the El Diamante Miners and Mt. Whitney Pioneers in a tri-meet.

For a program that has won just about every league championship but one (2 years ago), last week’s loss to Redwood was to say the least, troubling to Tiger wrestling fans, including its head coach. “It was a real eye opener,” said Tiger Coach Marcio Botelho, himself a state champion for the Tigers. “To be fair we didn’t have a full lineup for that match.”

Jose Lara made it 48-6 with his technical fall win over Golden West's Hector Armendarez.

He said a pair of his top wrestlers weren’t even in the lineup for that match due to injuries. Middleweight Manny Collins will be returning soon from an injury and heavyweight Noah Wright should be back in the lineup soon.

“I think we’re now at about where we want to be,” said Botelho. “We certainly bounced back from last week.”

When all is said and done Botelho expects his squad to be challenging for yet another league title “We’ll be right there. As our kids get healthy and we have a full lineup, we’ll be scary,” he said.

He had plenty of praise for the lineup that showed up Wednesday night, including Jose Lara and Matteo Brewer, both of whom won their matches easily, Lara out pointing the Trailblazers’ Hector Armandariz 16-1 and Brewer winning with an easy pin in the first period.

“He (Lara) won 16-1. He just put a lot of points on the board for us,” said Botelho. “Mateo really picked up some good confidence with his pin.”

The night started off a bit wobbly when Lemoore’s only female wrestler in the lineup, Esperanza Cadena lost the match opener to Ivan Aguirre when he pinned Cadena in the second round. Cadena has beaten male opponents in the past and she is the top female wrestler in the Central Section.

Tiger newcomer Gary Joint they let loose as the Tigers rolled off 9 wins in a row. Lemoore only lost two matches on the night.

Joint, at 132 pounds, pinned Fernando Saldana in the second period to force a tie at 6-6. “There is a lot of tradition in the room,” said Joint, who is certainly enjoying his new surroundings at Lemoore High School. “You can just feel it.”

Joint was pleased with his performance Wednesday night. “I pinned my opponent. I always feel I can do better though, but I’m satisfied that I was able to help my team.”

In other matches Josefat Garcia (138) notched a third period pin to add to the onslaught while Greg Guzman only took 25 seconds to pin Golden West’s Pablo Gonzalez.

John Panduro won his match 18-5 while Jacob Gonzalves, at 171, took three periods to finally dispatch his opponent 6-1. Angel Solis scored a first period pin to continue the march to victory while Sabian Jones second period pin increased the score to 54-12.

Finally, Francisco Lopez and Christian Alvarez each earned pins.