Lemoore's Wayne Joint fifth overall at CIF State Wrestling Championships. Tigers show well for next year

As expected, Buchanan High School won its fourth consecutive state championship and fifth overall, scoring 235 points in the process.

Lemoore sent five wrestlers to the state championships. In addition to Joint and Kloster, junior Jesse Gaytan joined the duo in Bakersfield but failed to place among the top eight in his division. He qualified with a fifth-place showing in last week’s Masters in Lemoore.

Eunique Barnes, earned her third straight trip to the state finals, only to miss placing among the top eight female wrestlers in the state. Lemoore’s only other female competitor, 103-pound freshman Marisa Perico, also earned a trip to Bakersfield, but she too failed to crack the top eight.

“Well, first of all, it’s not easy to place,” said Tiger Coach Marcio Botelho, a former state champion himself. “My heart goes out to those kids who did place. It was awesome. The hope is that by them going in there this year and placing at the state tournament, we’re looking for some state titles from those guys next year. Next year hopefully we’ll get the top spots, and I’m very pound of our guys. They wrestled pretty well.”

Joint won his first four matches at 126 pounds before losing to Esperanza High School’s Aaron Nagao in the semifinals. Nagao eventually went on to win the tourney, defeating Christan Nunez of Bishop Amat High in the finals.

Gaytan won his opener before losing in the third round to Buchanan’s Maximo Renteria. Kloster won his first two matches in the tourney before losing in the third round to Louis Rojas of St. John Bosco. All three Tigers wrestlers, all underclassmen, will return next year to challenge for state titles.

In the girls’ bracket, Perico lost her opening round match and then won her first consolation match against Tokay’s Gabrielle Medeiros before ending her state title quest with a loss to Hillsdale High’s Kristal Betanzo in the consolation’s second round.   

Barnes, wrestling at 189 pounds, also lost her opening round to Beckman High’s Melissa Moreno. She won her opener in consolation and then dropped her next match to Silver Creek’s Juliannah Bolli.

“Eunique’s been there before. She lost some tough matches,” said Botelho.  “Perico, as a freshman going into the state tourney, I thought she wrestled well. It’s a scary thing to wrestle at such a big event, especially as a freshman. Just wrestling there is good experience, and hopefully, she’ll be there next year.”

Already Botelho is looking forward to next year. “We have four of the five coming back.”  “Next year we should be definitely be looking forward to bringing home some state championships.”