La Cañada High, Hoover wrestling qualify 14 at Rio Hondo League finals
MONROVIA — On a day of championships and qualifying, the La Cañada High and Hoover wrestling programs did just that at the Rio Hondo League individual finals at Monrovia High on Saturday afternoon.
The Spartans and Tornadoes combined for four individual titles — Russell Marki, David Vardanian and Steve Naldzhyan of La Cañada and Narek Zamanyan of Hoover — while advancing 10 additional grapplers to the CIF Southern Section Coastal Division championships, a two-day tournament slated to start Feb. 20 at Lake Elsinore Lakeside High.
“It was good today,” Spartans second-year Coach Justin Luthey said. “I think we were hoping for more champs. We were missing a sick wrestler, but we had some awesome upsets at 120 pounds and at heavyweight. It was fun to see that and guys coming together at the right time of the season.”
Luthey is hoping that his team’s dual-meet season isn’t finished yet as the league runner-up Spartans (24-6) are vying for one of eight at-large berths to the CIF Southern Section Western Division Dual-Meet Championships at Long Beach Millikan High on Saturday. The CIF-SS office will release pairings Thursday at 1 p.m.
For a second straight year, the Spartans qualified eight wrestlers out of league finals while claiming three championships, including the lone title bout against Hoover.
In that contest, Marki, a senior, appeared headed for defeat before rallying for a 3-1 victory versus Tornadoes senior Edmen Shahbazyan in the 195-pound final.
Shahbazyan, who was not active when the teams met Jan. 8, held a 1-0 lead heading into the third round after a picking up an escape midway through the second round.
Marki began the third round out of the defensive position in order to grab an escape and tie the match, but was almost denied that crucial point due to a series of successful arm chops from Shahbazyan.
However, Marki finally escaped with 31 seconds left in the bout before landing a winning takedown with six seconds remaining.
“[Shahbazyan] tried a desperation shot without setting up properly first,” Marki said. “I managed to defend it.”
The victory was the first of three straight for the Spartans in the upperweights.
Vardanian, a sophomore, also made easy work of St. Paul’s Noah Ramirez in the 220-pound final in picking up a pin in 46 seconds for the quickest fall of the afternoon.
“I have to give it to my coaches,” said Vardanian, who received a little sideline coaching from his brother, former Spartans standout Marty Vardanian. “Coach has been showing me different situations and how to react.”
One of the more interesting, if not unknown, champions was Naldzhyan, a senior.
The offensive lineman weighed 340 pounds in the early winter, but slimmed down to 285 in a two-month span in making his debut at the league tournament.
Naldzhyan totaled three falls, including when he pinned San Marino’s Max Abughazaleh in the heavyweight finals in 4:38.
“The heavyweight matches usually come down to who has the better cardio,” said Naldzhyan, who ran five miles a day over the last two months. “As soon as I felt him move a little, I waited and then I got that pin.”
La Cañada had two additional championship tries come up short as San Marino’s Isaiah Mora pinned Spartan sophomore Andrew Aghadjanians with .02 seconds left in the second round of their 120-pound final. La Cañada senior Daniel Badie also pulled out of his 182-pound title fight with 10 seconds left in the second quarter due to an injury, which gave San Marino’s Tino Maese the crown.
Along with those five finalists, the Spartans also qualified three third-place finishers in 106-pounder Jacob Baisom, 126-pounder Tim Skaggs and 160-pounder Chris Harb.
To qualify to the CIF postseason, a wrestler needed to finish in the top three in league.
As for Hoover, the Tornadoes were nearly perfect again.
A year removed from qualifying 10 of 10 wrestlers, Hoover advanced six of seven grapplers with Zamanyan, a junior, as his team’s unlikely lone champion.
Perhaps Zamanyan’s most impressive accolade was simply surviving the war of attrition as two league wrestlers ranked ahead of him pulled out due to injury.
With the door open, Zamanyan scored the final five points of his 138-pound championship bout and defeated St. Paul’s Ryan Rendich, 13-9. What Zamanyan was only made aware of Saturday was that his match was indeed a do-or-die proposition as the league decided to award the two injured wrestlers seeds for the postseason, leaving the Zamanyan-Rendich bout as a winner-take-all qualifier.
“I knew I was losing and I tried to do something, to move,” Zamanyan said. “I knew I couldn’t give up a point because if I lost, it was over.”
Hoover junior Jesse Martinez ran into a buzzsaw in the 132-pound final and was defeated via technical fall, 17-2, to San Marino’s Julian Flores.
Two weight classes later, brother Geraldy Martinez could only hobble to the scorekeeper with a high ankle sprain and shook the hand of San Marino’s Zander Wick, who won the 145-pound championship due to an injury default.
Hoover had one last crack at an additional championship, but 170-pound junior Murad Muradyan was pinned by St. Paul’s David Castillo in 1:31.
The Tornadoes had one additional third-place qualifier in 113-pounder Karlan Hakopyan.
“I’m pretty happy, we got six out of seven guys going to CIF,” said Tornadoes Coach Dave Beard, whose squad will not advance to the dual-meet championships. “I thought Narek really wrestled well. I’m happy with how Geraldy and Jessie wrestled to get to the finals. It’s great to see five guys get to the finals and all that’s left for us is to take that next step.”
Other Rio Hondo League champions were San Marino’s Tino Lopez (106 pounds), Zander Silva (113), Sevastian Vasquez (126), Troy Luke (152) and Aaron Padilla (160).